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1 


THE 
EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 


BOOKS  BY 
HARLEY  GRANVILLE -BARKER 


The  Marrying  of  Ann  Leete 

The  Voysey  Inheritance 

Waste 

The  Madras  House 

Anatol 

Souls  on  Fifth 

Three  Short  Plays 

The  Exemplary  Theatre 


THE 

EXEMPLARY 
THEATRE 

By 
HARLEY  GRANVILLE  -  BARKER 


^ON-REFEtC 


SiV\\/\o  •  a  is 


BOSTON 
LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 
1922 


Copyright,  1922. 
Bt  Hahley  Granville-Babkeb 


All  rights  reserved 


Published  May,  1922 


Pbihted  ih  the  United  States  or  America 


PREFACE 


THE  history  of  a  book's  writing  lias  an  interest 
for  its  author,  when  (the  worst  over)  he  is  able 
to  recall  it,  that  he  can  hardly  expect  its  readers 
to  share.  But  in  the  origin  and  development  of  the 
ideas  which  I  have  tried  to  express  in  "The  Exemplary 
Theatre"  I  do  seem  to  find  a  significance  sufficiently 
impersonal  for  their  recording,  perhaps,  to  be  pardon- 
able. 

The  history  begins,  then,  about  twenty  years  ago 
at  a  meeting  held  in  some  drawing-room  in  the  further 
West  End  of  London.  My  memory  is  not  more  pre- 
cise; nor  does  it  distinguish  who  was  present.  But 
the  meeting's  object  —  the  object  at  least  that  emerged 
—  was  to  consider  what  steps  could  be  taken  towards 
the  foundation  of  a  national  theatre,  and  its  result 
the  appointment  of  a  committee  to  draw  up  a  scheme. 
From  this  point  my  memory  grows  clearer.  The  com- 
mittee consisted  of  Gilbert  Murray,  A.  C.  Bradley, 
Spenser  Wilkinson,  William  Archer,  Hamilton  Fyfe, 
and  —  longo  intervallo  —  my  humble  self.  It  met 
several  times  at  Spenser  Wilkinson's  house  and  dis- 
cussed at  some  length  and,  as  was  to  be  expected, 
with  great  learning  the  principles  that  should  govern 
the  establishment  and  conduct  of  national  theatres 
in  general.  Spenser  Wilkinson,  I  remember,  was 
most  apt  to  turn  for  a  solution  of  our  difficulties  to 
the  practice  of  the  ancient  Greeks.  I  trust  I  sat  silent. 
I  was  impatient  —  the  scheme  seemed  likely  to  be 
long  in  coming  to  birth.  I  am  sure  I  looked  forward 
to  a  national  theatre  in  being  within  the  next  year 
or  so.  I  have  since  thought,  as  the  sequel  will  show, 
that  our  theorizing  need  not  have  been  wasted. 


VI  PREFACE 

But  one  morning  William  Archer  arrived  at  my 
rooms  in  tlie  Adelphi  and  delivered  himself  some- 
what to  this  effect: 

"We  must  get  something  on  paper.  '^Miat  you 
and  I  have  to  do  is  to  draw  up  a  practical  scheme, 
and  these  other  fellows  may  amend  it  if  they  know 
how." 

He  had  only  to  command  me,  so  we  set  to  work, 
and  the  result  —  to  which,  I  should  add,  his  con- 
tribution much  outweighed  mine  —  was  a  considerable 
mass  of  detail  which  we  named  "A  Scheme  and  Es- 
timates for  a  National  Theatre."  My  memory  becomes 
vague  again.  I  presume  the  scheme  was  submitted 
in  some  form  to  the  responsible  committee,  though 
I  am  quite  sure  that  the  parent  meeting  was  never 
reassembled.  The  committee  probably  gave  up  the 
ghost  at  being  challenged  to  pronounce  upon  the 
subscription  prices  that  should  be  charged  for  a  second 
performance  of  Measure  for  Measure,  whether  and 
when  a  third  scenic  artist  should  come  on  the  pension 
fund,  and  the  number  of  charwomen  that  would  be 
wanted.  Archer  and  I  were  left  proudly  alone  with 
our  offspring. 

We  then  proceeded  to  self -suppression :  first  in  favour 
of  seven  godfathers  —  I  must  name  them:  Henry 
Irving,  Squire  Bancroft,  J.  M.  Barrie,  Helen  d'Oyly 
Carte,  John  Hare,  Henry  Arthur  Jones,  and  A.  W. 
Pinero  —  and  contingently  in  favour  of  any  beneficent 
millionaire  to  whom  their  good  word  might  recommend 
this  magnificent  opportunity.  It  should  be  his  scheme 
for  £350,000  or  so.  There  were  no  offers.  The  benev- 
olence of  the  godfathers  availed  nothing.  I  fancy 
some  timid  approaches  were  made  to  the  Government. 
But  tariff  reform  —  or  the  tariff  reformer  rather  — 
wjis  :\\  lliat  time  Mr.  Balfonr's  amply  sufficient  trouble, 
and  his  interest,  so  he  is  reported  lo  have  said  on  the 
broaching  of  the  subject,  lay  rather  in  classical  con- 


PREFACE  Vll 

certs  with  the  prices  at  twopence,  fourpence,  and  six- 
pence. I  fancy,  too,  that  candidates  for  baronetcies 
and  the  hke  were  not  quite  so  numerous  then;  besides, 
£350,000  much  overtopped  the  market-rate. 

I  recall,  amid  the  barren  complaisance  with  which 
the  scheme  was  greeted  by  the  few  who  took  the  trouble 
to  read  it,  one  piece  of  harsh  and  pertinent  criticism 
from  Bernard  Shaw. 

"It's  no  good,"  he  said,  "for  no  one  with  the  youth 
and  energy  to  get  such  a  theatre  started  would  do  a 
hand's  turn  for  the  sake  of  such  a  musty  list  of  plays 
as  you  put  down.  The  old  drama  or  the  new  drama 
may  serve  you,  but  old-fashioned  drama's  the  devil." 

We  had  apologetically  ruled  out  of  the  specimen 
repertory  Ibsen  and  Hauptmann  and  Shaw  himself, 
and  a  few  others  (Brieux  had  slipped  in,  though), 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  no  advanced  theatre  we 
were  designing.  So  that,  with  a  little  heat,  Archer 
replied  that  as  quite  notorious  Ibsenites,  Haupt- 
mannites,  Shavians,  etc.,  we  had  made  this  great 
sacrifice  as  a  pledge  of  good  faith.  To  which  Shaw 
only  answered  that  if  we  had  n't  the  courage  of  our 
opinions  we  deserved  to  be  ignored. 

We  were.  But  that  was  to  have  contented  us  if 
only  the  millionaire  would  have  fathered  the  already 
well  godfathered  scheme.  And  Shaw's  criticism,  if 
pertinent,  was  partial.  But  it  raises  one  interesting 
issue.  Does  not  a  little  self-seeking  do  more  to  pro- 
mote public  confidence  than  a  disinterestedness  which 
will  either  be  suspected  as  hypocritical  or  condemned 
as  half-hearted.'^ 

Some  years  later,  however,  when  Archer  and  I 
had  travelled  together  to  America  and  were  discussing 
in  New  York  a  not  dissimilar  project,  there  blazed 
up  in  London  —  public  meetings,  press  paragraphs, 
and  all  —  a  movement  to  establish  a  national  theatre 
as   a  tercentenary  monument   to   Shakespeare.     And 


VIU  PREFACE 

we  returned  to  find  the  committee,  to  which  we  were 
added,  disposed  to  adopt  our  scheme  as  at  least  a 
prehminary  text-book.  It  had,  I  think,  by  this  time 
been  pubHshed,  was  no  longer  anonymous,  but  re- 
mained as  disinterested  as  ever. 

Into  the  next  ten  years'  history  of  the  Shakespeare 
National  Theatre  Committee  I  do  not  propose  to  go. 
Enough  to  say  that  when  the  tercentenary  came  England 
—  and  Europe  —  memorialized  it  in  another  fashion. 
I  forbear  the  usual  ironic  comment  upon  the  German 
patronage  of  our  national  poet.  But  I  will  record 
the  bitterness  of  my  realization  —  sharpened  by  the 
occasion  —  of  the  theatre's  utter  and  ignominious 
failure  during  the  war  to  lift  its  head  into  any  region 
of  fine  feeling  and  eloquence.  It  was  sharpened  still 
more  by  the  thought  that  had  our  Shakespeare  National 
Theatre  been  earlier  brought  to  a  safe  existence  that 
would  surely  have  stood  in  significant  honour  above 
the  disgrace. 

Well,  it  is  1921,  and  the  memorial  committee  is  still 
whistling,  and  may  whistle,  for  their  money  —  and 
they  need  more  than  £350,000  now.  This  is  not  yet 
a  country  for  the  heroic  dramatist  to  live  in.  And 
it  is  no  use  crying  over  the  spilt  years.  So,  personally, 
I  have  turned  for  comfort  upon  the  subject  during 
these  last  three  or  four,  to  a  reconsideration  of  the 
theatre's  whole  position.  And  this  book  is  evidence 
of  such  comfort  as  I  have  found. 

If  we  had  established  our  national  theatre  according 
to  the  idea  of  it  connnonly  current  ten  to  twenty 
years  ago  (and  the  scheme  and  estimates  represents 
this  not  unfairly)  we  might  well  have  set  up  some- 
thing thai,  di<l  not  truly  or  fully  rc]U'esent  our  national 
dramatic  genius.  We  were  stirred,  for  one  thing,  to 
an  emulation  of  the  Theatre  Fran{;:ais,  we  were  inclined 
to  borrow  useful  items  from  the  ])lans  of  the  many 
good  German  and  Scandinavian  theatres.     No  harm 


PREFACE  IX 

in  that,  once  we  have  achieved  an  individuality  of  our 
own.  But  have  we  —  in  dramatic  matters  more 
important  far  than  organization  and  machinery?  We 
talk  of  the  renaissance  of  our  theatre;  dating  it,  accord- 
ing to  taste,  from  1870,  1890,  1900  or  whenever.  And 
so,  no  doubt,  we  most  allowedly  may.  But,  for  one 
thing,  this  is  a  renaissance  of  the  written  drama  only. 
Acting  —  which  is  the  theatre's  original  art  —  has 
by  no  means,  if  this  book  is  in  the  right,  yet  adjusted 
itself  to  its  new  opportunity.  And  certainly  the  theatre, 
as  a  whole,  has  only  begun  to  absorb  the  interesting 
and  often  typically  English  developments  of  the 
art  of  scenic  decoration.  Moreover,  we  are  all  still 
under  the  dominance  of  the  well-made  play.  In  our 
play-writing  renaissance,  if  we  broke  from  Scribe, 
we  fell  into  the  arms  of  Ibsen  and  have  hardly  yet 
escaped  from  them.  Not  that  these  embraces  nec- 
essarily did  us  harm. 

But  to  survey  his  heritage  and  to  prosper  its  work- 
ing a  man  must  stand  upright  and  feel  his  feet. 

Now,  it  is  obvious  that  the  drama  is,  of  all  others, 
an  intensely  racial  art;  whatever  the  playwright  may 
do,  the  actor  cannot  —  and  advisedly  will  not  try 
to  —  translate  or  adapt  himself.  The  genius  of  French 
acting  is  fitted  to  the  well-made  play  —  naturally, 
as  the  two  things  have  developed  together.  Together, 
moreover,  they  may  almost  be  said  to  represent  with 
perfect  fitness  the  genius  of  the  French  nation  itself  — 
reasonable,  precise,  rounded  neatly  and  completely 
from  cause  to  effect. 

But  does  it  follow  that  this  form  and  method  will 
be  equally  expressive  of  the  characteristics  of  other 
races.'^  It  is  noticeable,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the 
typical  French  actor  turns  from  the  foreign  play  if 
he  cannot  turn  it  to  himself.  Consider  the  work  of 
three  such  dramatists  as  Shakespeare,  d'Annunzio, 
Tchekov.      Apart  from  all  excellence  of  content,   is 


X  PREFACE 

not  its  salient  quality  —  that  thrust  out  for  its  inter- 
preters to  seize  —  racial  expressiveness,  and  does 
not  this  necessarily  dictate  metliod  and,  finally,  form? 
And  now  consider  one  or  two  points  in  the  history 
of,  say,  the  English  and  German  theatres.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  the  Germans  borrowed  largely 
from  us  —  they  swallowed  Shakespeare  whole.  In 
the  nineteenth  they  borrowed  from  the  French.  They 
assimilated  Ibsen,  they  gave  much  original  attention 
to  organization  and  decoration.  They  have,  indeed, 
a  voracious  dramatic  appetite,  and  are  little  inclined 
to  wait  patiently  for  the  slow  growth  of  native  prod- 
uct. But  when  this  does,  if  with  difficulty,  appear 
it  is  remarkable  for  rebellion,  both  in  minor  methods 
and  larger  form,  against  the  borrowed  models.  In 
England,  from  1660  onwards,  foreign  influence  upon 
our  theatre  is  apparent.  Throughout  the  nineteenth 
century  we  borrow,  indeed  we  often  steal  quite  shame- 
lessly, from  the  French:  so  shamelessly  that  our 
sense  of  "mine  and  thine"  is  gone,  and  we  find  our- 
selves, in  our  own  despite,  violently  trying  to  convert 
the  very  work  of  Shakespeare  and  of  Sheridan  into 
the  likeness  of  the  well-made  play.  Our  modern 
actors,  bred  to  the  borrowed  drama,  acquiesce.  To 
the  Elizabethan  actor,  though,  Shakespeare's  work, 
as  Shakespeare  wrote  it,  came  naturally  enough;  he 
was  one  of  them  himself  for  that  matter.  And  though 
we  need  not  trouble  to  argue  why  Racine  would  have 
puzzled  Burbage,  and  how  —  more  to  the  point  — 
Pinero  and  Galsworthy  would  have  upset  the  Globe 
Theatre  stage-manager  completely,  is  it  not  true 
that  while  other  English  arts  can  show  —  for  all 
incidental  breakings  —  characteristic  descent,  the  art 
of  the  theatre  to-day  is  most  characteristically  un- 
English?  The  content  of  our  plays  may  be  native, 
but  the  form,  as  a  rule,  will  be  arbitrary'  and  foreign, 
and  will  show  little  regard,  or  none,  for  the  character 


PREFACE  XI 

of  the  interpretation  the  play  is  to  receive.  What 
form  does  the  Enghsh  genius  for  self-expression  most 
readily  take?  What  dramatist  starts  by  asking  him- 
self such  a  question?  In  lyric  and  epic  poetry,  in 
fiction,  do  we  not  tend,  unhindered  still,  to  run  the 
Shakespearean  gamut  of  rhetoric  and  metaphysic, 
to  be  allusive,  to  be  passionate,  seldom  ironic,  logical 
hardly  ever?  How  should  we  expect  to  find  English 
actors  at  their  best,  burdened  with  a  method,  crippled 
in  a  form,  which,  however  excellent,  is  no  development 
of  their  natural  way  of  expression,  is  as  foreign  to  that 
and  to  them  as  the  words  of  a  foreign  language  would 
be?  The  trouble  is,  it  would  seem,  that  the  integrity 
of  the  English  theatre  has  been  destroyed.  The  drama- 
tist can  serve  strange  gods  and  can  profit  by  it;  the 
actor  cannot.  But  harmony  between  the  two  there 
must  be:  because,  for  all  the  dramatist's  importance, 
acting  is  not  only  the  original  art  of  the  theatre,  it 
remains  its  peculiar  foundation.  And  it  may  be  that 
the  time  lost  in  setting  up  our  standard  of  a  Shakes- 
peare memorial  will  not  have  been  time  wasted  if  in 
it  we  can  profit  by  this  lesson  which  Shakespeare's 
own  art  so  particularly  teaches  us. 

But  further  —  and  this  is  the  encouragement  of 
thought  by  which  my  share  of  the  Scheme  and  Es- 
timates has  developed  into  this  book  —  it  may  well 
be  that  just  as  Shakespeare  made  of  drama  something 
which  outspanned  all  its  then  acknowledged  powers, 
so  we,  gathering  up  tradition  with  understanding 
and  measuring  our  power  by  our  need,  might  make 
in  our  turn  of  the  theatre  something  that  would  not 
only  better,  but  quite  transcend,  its  present  service 
to  us.  Even  in  its  complexity  it  is  so  simple  an  art, 
and  the  pleasure  and  the  profit  of  it  are  so  common  a 
heritage.  We  have  been  setting,  it  may  be,  inappro- 
priate limits  to  its  destiny. 

September  19U  H.  G-B. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  I:  The  Author's  Prejudices,  and  Others' 

The  uses  of  dialogue  —  Dramatists  all;  and  actors 
all  —  "The"  profession  —  The  theatre's  appeal  to 
the  mob  —  Should  drama  be  accounted  one  of  the 
fine  arts?  —  The  difficulty  of  ranking  the  theatre 
as  a  social  service  —  The  difficulty  of  using  the 
drama  in  education  —  Art 's  overrated  influence  — 
The  theatre  as  catspaw  —  The  economics  of  the 
modern  English  theatre  —  Authority's  obligation 
to  the  theatre  —  The  drama 's  industrial  difficulty 
is  that  an  art  shall  not  be  an  industry  — -  Art  as  a 
gift  to  society  —  Society 's  responsibility  in  accept- 
ing the  gift  —  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  theatre 
in  England  —  The  larger  idea  of  drama  pp.  1-35 

Chapter  II:  The  Educational  Basis 

Book  learning  and  the  educational  claims  of  acting 

—  The  professional  theatre 's  contribution  —  Pub- 
lic manners  —  The  tradition  of  our  speech  —  The 
American  language  —  The  influences  of  climate 
and  of  recent  immigration  —  The  drama  as  a  mi- 
crocosm of  society  —  The  self-realization  of  a  child 

—  The  teaching  of  psychology  —  Democracy,  the 
newspapers,  and  the  whole  art  of  fiction  —  Quali- 
fications and  temptations  of  the  journafist  —  The 
public 's  self-defence  —  The  artistic  synthesis  — 
The  popular  attitude  towards  interpretative  art  — 
Theatre  v.  novel  —  The  good  audience  —  The  edu- 
cational use  of  drama  —  The  Exemplary  Theatre 

—  The  break  in  the  acting  tradition  —  Robertson- 
Bancroft-Pinero  —  The  Ibsen  challenge  —  The 
discredited  art  of  acting  —  The  need  for  a  new  vir- 
tuosity —  The  critics  —  The  wrong  sort  of  school 

—  The  army  of  women  —  The  unprofessional  stu- 
dent pp.  36-95 


XIV  CONTENTS 

Chapter  III:  The  Plan  of  the  Theatre  as  School 

The  school 's  scope  —  No  children  admitted  —  The 
broad  base  of  the  work  —  No  teaching  of  acting 
allowed  —  The  by-paths  of  the  social  "  settlement" 
and  the  "community"  theatre  —  The  picked  re- 
cruits —  Playwriting    classes  —  Stage    decoration 

—  The  co-operative  study  of  plays  —  Critical  and 
interpretative  bias  —  Bringing  the  play  to  life  — 
How  the  seminar  works  —  The  absorption  of  the 
interpreter  by  the  play  —  "  Strife  "  quoted  as  an  ex- 
ample —  The  hstening  part  —  The  placing  of  a  char- 
acter in  the  scheme  of  the  play  —  The  apparent 
development  of  plot  from  the  characters  and  scenes 
themselves  —  Mass  effect  —  Where  student  and  in- 
terpreter part  company  —  The  misuse  of  the  clas- 
sics— The  would-be  actor  admitted  to  the  playhouse 
at  last  —  Experimental  work  for  students  in  their 
last  year  —  The  Umits  of  a  play 's  use  to  the  seminar 

—  Subsidiary  school  work;  lectures,  etc.  pp.  96-143 

Chapter  IV:  The  Theatre  as  Playhouse 

No  definite  boundary  between  playhouse  and 
school  —  The  sort  of  actor  and  actress  this  theatre 
needs  —  The  rescue  from  vagabondage  —  The 
need  of  the  actor  to  study  more  and  perform  less 

—  The  actor 's  need  of  other  work  than  acting  — 
The  destruction  of  illusion  as  a  step  to  appreciation 

—  Our  interest  in  interpretation  the  only  one 
worth  cultivating  —  The  relation  of  the  actors  to 
the  management  of  the  theatre  —  The  theatre  as 
livelihood  —  The  fallacy  of  administration  by  com- 
mittee — An  integrated  audience  and  its  representa- 
tion —  The  political  influence  of  the  theatre  as  a 
public  institution  —  A  council  at  the  head  of 
affairs;  its  constitution;  its  work  —  The  council  as 
the  conscience  of  the  management  —  Where  public 
blame  should  fall  —  The  theatre 's  director  and  his 
aulofT.'icy  —  The  choice  of  plays  —  The  dangers  of 
instil utionalism  —  The  need  for  a  y)lay-reador  of 
unusnal  importance  —  The  difficulties  of  experi- 
menting in  play  production  —  The  j)lay -reader's 
qualifications  and  powers  —  A  third  voice  needed 


CONTENTS  XV 

in  the  choosing  of  plays  —  The  fallacy  of  trying 
to  get  everything  right  at  once  —  The  librarian; 
the  making  of  prompt  books;  the  conserving  of  tra- 
dition —  The  prompters  themselves  —  The  work- 
shop —  The  amount  of  attention  to  be  given  to 
stage  decoration  —  The  easy  way  of  visual  appeal 

—  Artistic  economy  —  The  salutary  influence  of 
conventional  staging  —  The  need  for  agreement 
on  convention  between  interpreters  and  audi- 
ence —  The  workshop  and  collaboration  —  The 
workshop 's  organization  —  Craftsmanship  —  The 
stranger  designer  —  Machinery  —  The  right  sort 
of  auditorium  and  the  wrong  —  The  differing  re- 
quirements of  the  different  kinds  of  drama     pp.  144-206 

Chapter  V:  The  Production  of  a  Play 

How  plays  are  now  thrown  on  the  stage  —  The 
scratch  company  —  The  hurried  rehearsals  —  The 
limitations  of  the  human  medium  —  Setting  to 
work  upon  "A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  — 
How  physical  action  brings  study  to  a  standstill 

—  The  mysterious  process  by  which  the  actor 
identifies  himself  with  his  part  —  The  dramatist's 
method,  which  the  actor  must  follow  —  Tension 
and  conflict  —  Never  commit  words  to  memory 

—  The  mystery  of  identification  again  —  Produc- 
tions must  be  born  and  not  made  —  The  two  cate- 
gories of  a  play 's  action :  the  conscious  action  — 
Unconscious  or  subconscious  action  —  The  Scylla 
and  Charybdis  of  automatism  and  self-conscious- 
ness —  Pure  conventionalism  —  The  limits  of  the 
personal  appeal  —  The  mystery  yet  again  —  The 
actor  "lets  himself  go"  —  The  danger  of  autom- 
atism again — Acting  the  art  of  sympathy  —  The 
childhood  of  the  art  —  The  demands  of  its  ad- 
olescence pp.  207-237 

Chapter  VI:  Some  Current  Difficulties 

Compromise  and  catchwords  —  The  defence  of  the 
long-run  system  —  Verdict:  the  long  run  guilty  of 
the  destruction  of  the  art  of  acting  —  The  short 
run  little  better  —  Why  many  gallant  efforts  at  re- 


XVI  CONTENTS 

form  have  failed  —  The  cautious  capitaHst  — 
Practical  difficulties  for  "practical"  managements 
—  The  way  out  of  the  difficulty  —  Old  methods 
and  new  drama  —  The  good  business  man  and  the 
theatre  —  The  integrated  audience  —  The  need 
for  a  budget  —  The  pyramid  of  policy  —  A  Shakes- 
pearean parenthesis  —  The  theatre 's  duty  towards 
the  drama  —  The  theatre 's  duty  towards  itself  — 
A  few  sample  plays  —  Drama  and  democracy  — 
The  danger  of  the  clique  —  The  need  for  a  leisured 
class  pp.  238-270 


THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 


THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

Chapter  I 
The  Author's  Prejudices  and  Others 

ONE  follows  a  calling  for  thirty  years  and  forgets 
its  comparative  unimportance;  how  could  it 
hold  one  otherwise?  But,  pleading  its  cause 
to  the  world,  this  is  the  first  thing  one  must  make 
a  show  of  remembering.  For  a  man  of  the  theatre 
to  write  of  the  theatre  as  if  nothing  else  mattered  is 
only  to  invite  from  the  man  of  the  world  that  polite 
acquiescence  which  is  deadlier  than  disagreement. 

This  book  is  a  plea  for  the  recognition  of  the  theatre 
as  an  educational  force.  It  is  addressed  mainly  to 
people  whose  present  interest  in  the  theatre  is  at  best 
perfunctory.  And  its  first  chapter  takes  the  appropri- 
ate form  of  a  dialogue  between  a  man  of  the  theatre 
and  a  minister  of  education,  and  is  an  attempt  to 
reconcile  the  general  and  particular  points  of  view. 

To  begin  such  a  book  with  a  chapter  of  dialogue 
is  more  than  superficially  appropriate,  for  its  whole 
purpose,  as  will  be  seen,  is  implicit  in  the  virtue  of 
this  form  of  expression.  We  are  to  argue  the  educa- 
tional uses  of  the  dramatic  method.  Let  both  parties, 
then,  put  their  present  accomplishment  in  it  to  a  pre- 
liminary test. 

The  Man  of  the  Theatre  —  as  is  only  fair  —  frankly 
exposes  his  bias.  Why  pretend  in  a  book  of  polemic 
to  be  disinterested.'^  It  is  bad  enough  that  the  tech- 
nical questions  involved  will  prevent  the  lay  reader, 
half  the  time,  estimating  the  honesty  of  the  statements. 
The  Minister  of  Education  replies  coolly,  judicially. 
But  now  consider.     Was  the  admission  of  bias  a  dis- 


2  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

guised  appeal  for  sympatliy?  Is  the  reply  only  let 
seem  more  judicial  that  it  may  the  safelier  be  made 
less  so?  Is  the  writer's  whole  show  of  accommodation 
only  another  form  of  special  pleading?  How  far,  in 
fact,  does  his  art  elucidate  the  truth  of  the  matter, 
or  is  he  deliberately  using  it  to  obscure  the  truth?  If 
the  reader  can  discover  him  at  his  tricks,  so  much  the 
worse  for  him  —  if  not  for  his  art.  If  he  cannot,  so 
much  the  worse  for  the  reader  and  the  more  need  for 
a  little  education  in  this  dramatic  method!  The  more 
need,  then,  of  this  book.  In  one  sense  its  writer  is 
trying,  of  course,  to  get  round  his  readers.  Why  ever 
else  go  to  the  unnatural  trouble  of  writing  a  book  at 
all?  And  he  shows  but  a  necessary  confidence  in  his 
case  by  opening  with  this  demonstration.  Yet  the 
gist  of  the  case  is  that  the  dramatic  form,  if  honestly 
used  —  which  is  to  say  in  terms  of  an  art,  artistically 
used  —  is  the  vehicle  for  a  very  vital  sort  of  truth. 
And  this  is  its  honest  use.  First,  to  have  the  courage, 
not  only  of  the  strength,  but  of  the  weakness  of  one's 
opinion.  Not  merely  to  be  self -critical :  there  is  little 
in  that,  it  may  lead  only  to  diffidence.  But  to  project 
the  whole  body  of  one's  belief  into  an  individual  shape, 
armed  and  sustained  to  the  full.  Then  to  attack  it. 
Can  such  an  attack  be  genuine;  can  one  hit  oneself 
in  the  face?  Well,  we  must  not  look  for  a  detachment, 
or  an  artistry,  or  an  honesty  that  is  superhumanly 
perfect.  But  the  fact  of  projection  makes  all  the 
difference.  We  shall  be  tender  of  a  guarded  faith :  but 
if  it  has  had  its  fling,  if  we  have  set  it  free,  so  to  speak, 
from  reservation  and  control,  we  shall  then  be  well 
content  to  fling  back  at  it  and  to  fling  our  best.  For 
the  harder  we  fling  the  greater  its  credit  in  sustaining 
our  attack.  We  may  take  pride  even  in  showing  alien 
adversaries  that  we  know  its  weak  spots,  naturally, 
better  than  ever  they  can.  If  it  sustains  our  attacks 
it  will  certainly  be  invulnerable  to  theirs.     And  if,  as 


THE    AUTHOR  S    PREJUDICES  3 

it  happens,  we  do  demolish  it;  why,  to  do  so,  we  must 
have  formed  a  better  opinion  and  a  stronger  belief. 
Such  is  the  nature  of  the  dramatic  sense  that  we  shall 
be  glad  of  this  rather  than  sorry.  And  the  victory  will 
be  our  own  either  way. 

The  drama's  methods   are   the   commonest   in   the 
world:    they  are  the  methods  of  everyday  conversa- 
tion.     But   they    are   worth    study:     the 
more  that,  becoming  suddenly  aware  we      -Dramatists 
have  used  them  unknowingly  for  years,  we      actors  all 
may   think   ourselves   natural   masters   of 
the  art  —  which  is  first  to  deceive  ourselves,  and  later 
probably  to  be  deceived  in  turn,  and  so  to  come  to  the 
belief  that  the  art  lies  in  its  deceiving. 

Now,  art  is  a  social  danger  if  it  is  a  continuing  un- 
truth. Surely  that  does  not  attach  an  unreasoning 
importance  to  the  matter  if  the  practice  of  this  art 
of  the  drama  is  as  common  as  eating.  And  it  is.  We 
dramatize  our  lives;  by  no  other  means  can  we  decide 
upon  the  parts  we  mean  to  play  in  them.  We  are 
actors  all;  but  so  many  of  us,  setting  out  with  the  best 
intentions,  neither  know  when  nor  why  the  perform- 
ance begins  to  go  wrong,  and  tricks  to  take  the  place 
of  the  fine  interpretation  we  meant  to  give.  Nobody 
hisses  perhaps.     But  that 's  the  worst  of  it. 

This  book's  plea  for  the  theatre's  salvation  is  a 
wider  and  simpler  one  than  it  would  seem  to  be.  Tech- 
nical argument  apart,  it  is  a  plea  for  truth-telling 
(a  matter  of  great  artistry)  and  for  the  cultivation  of 
a  faculty  by  which  the  common  man  may  hope,  as  a 
rule,  to  know  whether  he  is  being  told  the  truth  about 
things  or  not.  Strange  if  dramatic  art  can  success- 
fully concern  itself  with  such  matters !  But  if  it  can  .  .  . 

The  Minister  of  Education But,  my  dear 

sir,  don't  apologize.  Every  man  worth  his  salt  nat- 
urally makes  high  claims  for  his  own  profession. 

The  Man   of  the    Theatre.     I   don't   apologize  .  .   . 


4  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

though  I'm  readier  for  the  moment  with  accusations 

than   claims.     I  recognize,   to  begin    with,   that   the 

theatre    is  not     a   profession.     That  was 

The"  •  •  • 

,      .  rubbed  into  me  by  a  kindly  editor  when 

profession        _ ,  ,         .  *{,  .\. 

1  d    written    my    nrst    public    words    on 

its  troubles  ...  a  letter  to  a  newspaper.      "Do  you 

mind  being  accurate.'^"  he  said.    "There's  a  medical 

profession,  a  legal  profession.    The  theatre  is  .  .  .  you 

may  choose  half  a  dozen  words  for  it."     I  went  away 

sorrowful   and   snubbed.     The   distinction   had   never 

occurred  to  me,  nor  had  the  subtle  contempt  come 

home  of  the  journalists'  joke  (briefless  barristers  most 

of  them!)  about  "the"  profession. 

I  imagine  that  I  fixed  upon  "calling."  One  avoids 
the  word  "art"  .  .  .  though  not  to  escape  the  Royal 
Academy's  fro^Tis.  Actors,  I  agree,  are  absurdly  sen- 
sitive. I  suppose  that  even  this  generation  of  them  is 
not  quite  free  from  the  struggle  to  be  considered  gentle- 
men. It  is  mostly  their  relations,  though,  country 
clergymen  and  the  like,  that  distressfully  take  up  the 
cudgels.  And  that  silliest  of  plays  "David  Garrick" 
—  even  sillier  in  its  motive  than  the  silly  prejudices  it 
mocks  and  appeals  to  —  is  but  just  out  of  date.  Better 
to  call  the  theatre  a  trade,  except  for  the  implication 
that  people  make  money  by  it. 

M.ofE.     But  don't  they.? 

M.  of  T.  Out  of  it,  yes.  But  by  following  the  calling 
and  practising  the  art  of  the  theatre  there  isn't,  for 
the  great  majority,  much  money  to  be  made.  In  that 
it  is  as  honourable  as  a  profession,  codeless  though  it 
be.  No  parson  or  doctor  or  civil  servant  could  be,  in 
practice,  more  disinterested  than  the  average  actor 
who  has  settled  down  to  the  life.  But  they  aire  trade 
victims,  if  you  like. 

M.  of  E.    And  is  that  your  first  comphu'ut? 

M.  of  T.  I  shan't  press  it  on  their  behalf.  The 
bored  and  barren  sympathy  which  the  victim  inspires  is 


THE   AUTHOR  S   PREJUDICES  5 

not  at  all  what  I'm  after.    I  want  to  interest  you  in 
the  theatre. 

M.  ofE.    As  .  .  .  what? 

M.  of  T.    As  social  serv^ice. 

M.  of  E.  Interest  on  my  part  is  to  be  oflScial  and 
to  imply  action,  is  it.^ 

M.  of  T.    Admission  of  the  need  for  action. 

M.  of  E.  Then  I  must  analyse  your  phrases  care- 
fully. You  mean  that  it  should  be  regulated  as  a 
social  service  ...  as  a  civil  service,  do  you.^* 

M.  of  T.    Not  strictly  ...  not  altogether. 

M.  of  E.  No,  since  civil  service  became  bureaucracy 
you  're  not  so  eager  to  entrust  your  darling  schemes  to 
its  care. 

M.  of  T.  Well,  I'll  own  that  I'm  thinking  of  my 
average  Englishman,  who'd  sooner  have  a  bad  bureau- 
cracy than  a  good  one  ...  it  is  a  step  nearer  having 
none  at  all. 

M.  of  E.     But  you  were  going  to  begin  with  com- 
plaints.   Let  us  clear  the  ground  of  those  first.     What 
offends   you  most  in   the  present   state   of 
things.?  "^^^      , 

M.  of  T.  Fundamentally,  I  believe,  that  appeal  to 
the  theatre  exists  by  appealing  to  the  mob.         the  mob 

M.  of  E.     To  the  pubhc. 

M.  of  T.  No,  no  ...  if  you  mean  to  analyse  my 
phrases  I  must  pick  my  words.  The  public  connotes 
something,  if  not  organized,  at  least  a  little  stable, 
does  n't  it.'*  My  first  complaint  is  of  the  mob  appeal, 
the  mob  standard  of  success,  and  the  evergrowing  con- 
fusion of  purpose  that  results.  In  London,  and  very 
notably  in  New  York,  it  is  n't  even  a  constant .  .  .  it 's 
a  shifting,  hotel-haunting  mob.  Oh,  a  demagogic  art, 
the  theatre  of  to-day,  if  ever  there  was  one. 

M.  of  E.  That 's  the  fault  of  a  quality,  surely,  for 
democratic,  as  a  normal  description  of  it,  would  n't 
offend  you,  would  it.? 


6  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

M.  of  T.    On  the  contrary. 

M.  of  E.  Well,  then,  as  to  its  proper  method  of 
carrymg  on.  ...  I  sound  old-fashioned,  but  I'm  a 
weary  bureaucrat  myself  and  not  over  in  love,  it  may 
surprise  you  to  hear,  with  indefinite  increase  of  bureau- 
cracy. It  takes  many  generations  to  train  competent 
officials,  you  know.  Heaven  knows  that  so  far  we 
have  n  't  enough  to  go  round.  What 's  wrong  with  the 
dear  old  discredited  law  of  supply  and  demand  to  regu- 
late the  theatre  by?  Can't  even  you  put  up  with  it  for 
a  bit.? 

M.  of  T.  Well,  I  admit  that  it  must  depend  upon 
current  appreciation  more  than  does  any  other  art, 
more  even  than  music  need,  because  of  the  greater 
expense  and  complexity  of  the  machinery.  Therefore 
degradation  is  easier  .  .  . 

M.  of  E.  I  protest  now  .  .  .  that  word  is  youi's. 
You're  horribly  self-conscious.  I  should  never  have 
dreamed  of  using  it. 

M.  of  T.  You  protest,  may  I  say,  too  readily.  You 
would  n  't  use  it  because  you'd  never  dream  of  admit- 
ting a  claim  from  the  theatre  to  rank  with  the  other 
arts;  music,  literature,  painting  .  .  .  though  these  in 
some  respects,  each  one  of  them,  sink  as  low  as  the 
drama  can.  But  you  don't  cease  to  honour  them  for 
that. 

M.  of  E.  I  don't  think  the  theatre  does  rank  with 
the  fine  arts  *  .  .  .  no.     The  drama  .  .  . 

*  Since  writing  this  it  has  been  decided  upon  technical  grounds, 
by  the  Chief  Registrar  of  Friendly  Societies,  that  acting  at  least 
does  not  rank  as  one  of  the  Fine  Arts.  His  judgment,  upon 
which  immediately  depended  the  liability  of  the  Academy  of 
Dramatic  Art  for  certain  rates,  is  a  practical  inconvenience  to  the 
progress  of  tlie  theatre  as  a  social  service,  and  had  therefore 
belter  be  upset  as  soon  as  possible.  The  arguments  upon  which 
he  founded  it,  tliough  interesting,  are  vitiated,  it  seems  to  me,  by 
his  consideration  of  the  constituents  of  the  art  as  the  art  itself. 
And  here  the  drafting  of  the  Academy's  charter  is  also  to  blame. 


THE   AUTHOR  S   PREJUDICES  7 

M.  of  T.     Oh,   please    don't    make    that  —  forgive 
me  —  that  silly  distinction.     Drama  has  no  claim  to 
existence   apart  from  the  theatre  that  it    should 
should   be   framed  for.     As  well  praise  a     drama  be 
yacht  for    being    built    to  stay  safely  in     accounted 
harbour  as  exalt  a  play  because  it  is  more    ^^^    of   the 
fitted  for  the  study  than  the  stage.  ^^^^  Arts? 

M.  of  E.  But  there's  a  finer  distinction.  Has  any 
theatre  you  can  name  ever  lived  up  to  the  best  oppor- 
tunities its  greatest  dramatists  have  given  it.^  How 
many  first  prizes  did  Euripides  win,'^  Do  you  suppose 
King  Lear  was  popular  with  actors,  or  audiences  either.? 
Is  it  a  libel  to  suggest  that  the  actor  of  to-day  cares 
very  little  for  the  quality  of  the  play  he  appears  in.^^ 

M.  of  T.  Yes,  I  think  it  is. 
■  M.  of  E.  But  the  better  actor  he  is  the  less  it  aftects 
him,  and  the  poorer  the  play  the  greater  his  personal 
success.  My  point  is  —  let  me  put  it  quite  brutally  — 
that  the  chief  circumstance  of  the  drama,  its  exploiting 
of  the  human  personality,  and  the  consequent  belittling, 
instead  of  exalting,  of  its  every  theme,  must  always 
forbid  it  to  be  thought  of  as  a  great  art. 

M.  of  T.  Well,  I  won't  question  .  .  .  for  the  mo- 
ment, at  any  rate  .  .  .  its  absolute  value.  But  can 
you  deny  the  colossal  influence  the  theatre  must 
have  .  .  .  merely  by  the  mass  of  its  output  .  .  .  upon 
the  public  imagination.'^ 

M.  of  E.     Certainly  I  deny  it.    That  sort  of  energy 

Had  it  advanced  as  the  main  object  of  the  institution  the  study 
of  the  Art  of  the  Theatre,  and  left  acting,  elocution,  diction,  and 
the  rest  in  a  qualifying  clause  there  would  have  been  a  better 
chance  of  a  favourable  decision.  For,  I  humbly  suggest  to  the 
Registrar,  if  he  will  analyse  and  isolate  the  constituents  of,  say, 
the  art  of  architecture,  the  exercises  in  which  its  students  must  be 
trained,  he  will  easily  be  able  to  prove  that  architecture  is  not  a 
fine  art  either.  The  Act  of  1843,  however,  expressly  stating  that 
it  is  so,  he  was  exempt,  unfortunately,  from  the  necessity  of 
making    the  comparison. 


8  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

is  expended,  as  a  rule,  without  direction,  and  I  incline 
to  believe  that  in  the  theatre's  instance,  as  far  as  any 
moral  effect  is  concerned,  one-half  of  it  about  cancels 
the  other. 

M.  of  T.    And  you're  content  with  such  waste? 

M.  of  E.  That's  part  of  a  bigger  question.  I  don't 
want  to  answer  it  by  saying  that  a  licence  to  waste 
is  all  man  has  gained  in  this  latest  prosperous  phase  of 
his  efforts  at  civilization.  But  we  do,  every  one  of 
us,  throw  away  and  wear  away  in  the  course  of  our 
lifetime  far  more  than  our  individual  energies  could 
ever  replace.  And  nowadaj's  we  're  so  many  of  us  mere 
entrepreneurs.  Our  lives  depend  on  machinery,  actual 
and  social,  and  on  the  willingness  of  .  .  .  let  us  ad- 
visedly remember  .  .  .  not  so  very  many  people  to 
keep  the  master-machinery  going  for  our  benefit.  Cer- 
tainly, therefore,  emotional  or  intellectual  extrava- 
gance, undirected  and  meaningless,  is  undesirable.  For 
one  may  justly  say  that  it  prompts  recklessness  of 
all  kinds. 

M.  of  T.    You  yield  me  my  point. 

M.ofE.    So  far. 

M.  of  T.  You  agree  that  an  emotionally  degraded 
theatre  is  a  dangerous  thing. 

M.  of  E.  It's  anarchical,  perhaps.  But,  I'm  not 
afraid  of  a  little  anarchy,  of  leaving  a  little  of  the  prim- 
itive social  mud  for  men  to  relax  themselves  in. 

M.  of  T.  Out  of  which  they  may  make  their  mud- 
pies  of  drama .'^ 

3/.  of  E.  Though  by  all  means  I'm  for  clarifying 
the  confusion  of  mind  that  leads  to  the  degradation  of 
things  of  value  ...  by  all  simple  means.  I  see  my 
educational  way  as  far  as  children  are  concerned.  I'd 
encourage  their  dancing,  singing,  playing  games  that 
have  rhyme  and  reason  .  .  .  not  too  much  reason  .  .  . 
in  I  hem.  I  see  my  way  for  the  adult  over  architecture, 
painting,  sculi)ture,  even  over  nuisic.    These  are,  com- 


THE   AUTHOR  S    PREJUDICES  9 

pared  with  the  theatre,  impersonal,  abstract  arts.  One 
can  consecrate  them  at  their  best,  and  set  them  apart. 
But  the  theatre  you  '11  admit  to  be  very  difficult  to 
handle  for  such  a  purpose.  And  can  you  convince  me 
that  even  at  its  best  it  would  reward  the  handling  as 
the  arts  which  have  permanency  of  fonn  do  undoubt- 
edly reward  our  care  of  them.?  Theoretically  we  should 
take  more  trouble  over  all  such  things,  no  doubt,  and 
over  many  others.  But  shall  we  be  practically  wise  to 
direct  our  spare  energy  ...  for  there's  not  much  to 
spare  .  .  .  towards  the  theatre .^^  Should  we  be,  even 
if  it  were,  in  its  working  out,  the  simplest  of  the  arts.'' 
That's  one  question.  But  another,  more  difficult  if  not 
more  serious,  arises  not  from  its  artistic  shortcomings 
...  I  leave  you  excusing  them  .  .  .  but  from  the 
complexity  of  its  organization  as  an  industry.  You 
are  proud  of  the  theatre  as  a  living  art,  reflecting  the 
spirit,  even  in  the  commonplace  life  of  the  time.  Why 
can't  you  be  content  with  that.?  What  would  you 
gain  by  trying  to  change  its  nature  ...  for  that's 
what  you  're  after,  I  fear.  Now  it 's  a  pleasant  super- 
fluity of  life.  Society  makes  certain  careless  and  in- 
coherent demands  of  it.  If  the  theatre's  responses  excel 
them  we're  grateful,  and  we  store  up  the  remembrance 
to  its  credit.  If  its  response  should  become  very  poi- 
sonous we  should  have  to  put  the  police  on  it.  But 
suppose  we  do  give  it  rank  with  life's  necessities,  put 
it  to  the  utilitarian  tests,  strangle  it  with  regulation, 
hand  it  into  the  care  of  people  with  highly  developed 
social  consciences  .  .  .  what  then?  Convince  me,  if 
you  can,  to  begin  with,  that  I  should  educationally 
gain  anything.  I'm  fairly  convinced  that  you  would 
artistically  lose.  Reform  your  theatre  from  within  as 
much  as  you  will  .  .  . 

M.  of  T.  That 's  not  easy.  Of  whatever  calibre  you 
mark  it,  the  drama  is  still  an  art.  But  the  theatre  as 
an  industry  is  a  successful  one.     Please  tell  me  upon 


10  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

what  basis  of  reasonableness  you  set  out  to  reform 
a  successful  industry.  It  is  under  the  control  of  busi- 
ness men  who  are  not  concerned  .  .  .  why  should  they 
be?  .  .  .  with  its  social  functions.  They  are  only  in- 
directly interested  in  its  artistic  development.  But 
they  are  very  particularly  concerned  that  what  I  have 
called  its  mob  appeal  should  remain.  All's  fish  that 
comes  to  their  net  with  a  piece  of  silver  slipped  in  the 
gills,  and  the  bigger  the  catch  the  better.  What  other 
standard  of  success,  then,  should  we  expect  them  to 
recognize  than  the  power  to  attract  the  greatest  possi- 
ble crowd  in  the  shortest  possible  time.^^ 

M.  of  E.     But  listen  now.     What  you  are  after  is 

the  exalting  of  dramatic  art.     Good.     How  will  its 

mere  recognition  (blessed   political  Meso- 

The  potamia  of  a  word)   by  public  authority 

difficulty  of     effect  that? 

ranlang  the  3^  ^j  rj.  g  careful.  Once  you  admit 
theatre  as  ,  •      '   ^        p  .  .        t  i 

a  social  ^"^  prmciple  01   recognition  1  may  push 

service  you  pretty  far  in  its  application. 

M.  of  E.    Believe  me,  I  see  you  at  it. 
Subsidized  theatres,  colleges  of  acting  .  .  . 

M.  of  T.  Well,  is  n't  our  standard  of  musical  achieve- 
ment higher  to-day  because  of  the  recognition  of  the 
art  and  the  endowment  of  musical  training  during 
the  last  fifty  ^ears? 

M.  of  E.  I  might  question  that.  Post  hoc  is  n't 
propter  hoc.  That  the  standard  of  public  taste  is  .  .  . 
higher,  shall  we  saj^?  .  .  .  well,  wider;  that  it  is  more 
.  .  .  shall  we  call  it  educated  or  sophisticated?  .  .  . 
I  won't  deny.  But  we  must  not  be  taken  in  by  the 
snobbery  which  leads  people  to  the  opera  or  to  classi- 
cal concerts  .  .  .  intellectual  snobbery,  the  most  aggra- 
vating variety. 

AI.  of  T.  Come  now,  people  can  only  learn  to  like 
music  by  listening  to  it.  I  must  say  that  for  an  edu- 
cationist you're  distressingly  impatient.     Movements 


THE   author's    prejudices  11 

of  this  sort  don't  show  a  real  result  in  much  under 
a  hundred  years. 

M.  of  E.  But  remember,  once  we  give  authority 
to  professors  to  spread  abroad  a  respect  for  some  com- 
pHcated  Hugo,  for  their  own  greater  credit  they'll  go 
on  complicating  it  indefinitely.  Does  it  follow  that  the 
fine  phrases  mean  anything:  that  Abracadabra  casts 
any  spell  except  upon  the  credulity  of  its  hearers? 
That  sort  of  mystery-mongering  is  not  education.  You 
don't  expect  me  to  encourage  you  to  go  round  muddling 
up  my  teachers'  minds  .  .  .  and  encouraging  them  to 
make  a  worse  muddle  in  their  pupils'  .  .  .  with  talk 
about  the  civic  importance  of  the  theatre  and  the 
psychological  necessity  for  the  development  of  the 
histrionic  instinct  in  children.  I  enjoy  a  good  play, 
well  acted;  so  do  they.  Don't  spoil  it  for  us.  I  admit 
a  certain  absolute  educative  value  in  music.  I  have  n't 
yet  admitted  it  in  the  drama,  have  I?  And  I  can't 
retract,  I  fear,  my  disparaging  remarks  about  the 
theatre.  But  shall  I  put  it  this  way.?  Any  of  the 
constituents  of  dramatic  art  that  I'd  be  ready  to  teach 
in  an  ordinary  school  you  probably  would  n't  be  con- 
tent to  call  drama  at  all. 

M.  of  T.  Come,  come.  We're  getting  on.  I'll  hold 
you  to  the  admission  that  you  might  be  ready  to  take 
the  poor,  pretentious,  and  accursed  thing  in  some  guise 
or  other  within  the  sacred  portals.  I'll  spare  you  the 
reminder  that  if  you  did  n't  teach  some  form  of  drama 
in  schools  you  could  n't  teach  anything  at  all  .  .  .  or 
rather,  I'll  return,  by  your  leave,  to  that  later.  But 
I'll  promise  not  to  be  at  all  exigent  about  what  you 
do  teach  as  long  as  you'll  give  it  its  rightful  name, 
and  not  disguise  it  as  gymnastics,  or  as  some  Cinderella 
branch  of  literature. 

M.  of  E.  But  from  the  moment  I  do  touch  the 
accursed  thing,  and  own  to  touching  it,  I  know  I  shall 
be  trapped  by  one  difiiculty  after  another.    You  know 


12  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

that,  too.  I  see  you  dissembling  a  malicious  grin,  and 
heightening  its  effect  thereby,  like  the  incorrigible  man 
of  the  theatre  that  you  are.  That's  the  worst  of  art. 
It  gets  round  you  under  false  pretences.  Give  me  solid 
science  and  I  know  w^here  I  stand.  There's  a  precise 
value  in  the  subject,  and  I  can  test  the  quality  of  the 
teaching.  But  I'm  to  put  on  the  list  of  the  school's 
work  something  called  dramatic  study,  am  I  ...  or 
the  art  of  self-expression.'^  My  dear  sir,  forgive  me  .  .  . 
that  simply  opens  the  door  to  charlatanism. 

M.  of  T.     Oh,  I  agree. 

M.  of  E.     Well  .  .  ,  ? 

M.  of  T.  You  must  go  further.  This  is  viy  point. 
Half  measures  are  what  the  charlatan  thrives  on.  If 
you  want  to  escape  him  you  must  go  the  whole  w^ay. 

M.  of  E.  To  the  study  of  drama  in  ordinary  schools, 
in  ordinary  classes.'* 

M.ofT.     Yes. 

M.  of  E.     And  not  as  literature.^     Inaction? 

M.  of  T.  Yes.  In  whatever  amount  of  action  .  .  . 
in  whatever  sort  of  action  the  study  demands. 

M.  of  E.     Well,  now,  admitting,  for  the  moment, 
some  value  in  the  thing,   incalculable  but   sufficient, 
my  difficulties  at  once  begin.    It's  a  co- 
\^^  operative  art,  and  very  unequally  co-oper- 

\    ^  y^  ative  in  its  practice;  very  hard,  therefore, 

drama  in  *^    make    use    of    for    individual    culture, 

education         You'll  admit  that. 

31.  of  T.  Yes,  certainly  a  young  lady 
can't  sit  down  to  a  piano  and  play  over  a  piece  of 
Shakespeare  as  she  can  an  Etude  of  Chopin.  But 
has  n't  that  facility  for  individual  showing-off  come 
near  being  the  damnation  of  musical  education? 

M.  of  E.    iNIaybe.    In  my  own  opinion,  yes. 

M.  of  T.  Yet  how  can  we  properly  study  any  art 
but  by  y)raclising  it  ?  For  the  musician  tluTc's  nothing, 
I  suj)pose,  like  a  little  hard  gruelling  in  an  orchestra. 


THE   author's   prejudices  13 

Working  together  at  a  play  does  knock  the  individual 
nonsense  out  of  young  people  so  oppressively  delighted 
with  their  newly-found  egotisms.  .  .  . 

M.  of  E.  Oh,  I'd  not  mind  a  class  in  the  drama  as 
an  infrequent  spree,  for  no  serious  attention  gets  given 
to  it  then.  Children  prefer,  though,  to  be  either  at 
work  or  at  play;  and  I  sympathize  with  them.  But 
constant  class- work  in  drama,  ranking  with  geography 
and  arithmetic!  To  begin  with,  how  would  you  pre- 
vent the  distraction  of  it  from  wrecking  both  the  class 
before  and  the  class  after  .'^ 

M.  of  T.    Oh,  that's  the  trouble,  is  it? 

M.  of  E.  I've  not  contended  so  far,  remember,  that 
the  drama  is  positively  demoralizing.  It  has  its  place, 
and  a  very  worthy  one,  as  recreation.  But  if  you  ask 
me  in  its  name  to  substitute  emotion  for  thought  and 
pleasure  for  hard  work,  and  as  a  part  of  education  .  .  . 
education,  mark  you!  ...  to  let  loose  that  spirit  in 
the  child  which  would  then  find  itself  very  loose  indeed 
in  the  man,  I  must  find  something  severe  to  say.  Don't 
call  me  old-fashioned.  There  are  no  fashions  in  this. 
The  world  has  never  got  on  by  cultivating  its  emotions, 
and  it  never  will. 

M.  of  T.  It  may  ill  become  a  mere  expert  in  emotion- 
alism to  tell  you  that  he  detects  a  confusion  of  thought, 
but  I  think  I  do.  In  the  same  breath  ...  at  least,  if 
you'd  had  a  proper  dramatic  training  you  could  have 
managed  it  all  with  one  breath;  as  it  was  you  took  two 
or  three  .  .  .  you  spoke  of  letting  loose  emotions  and 
cultivating  them,  as  if  you  equally  condemned  both 
proceedings.  But  surely  it's  only  dangerous  to  let 
loose  an  emotion  when  you  have  n't  cultivated  it? 

M.  of  E.  By  no  means.  Cultivation,  for  instance, 
may  hall-mark  it  with  an  entirely  fictitious  value,  and 
it  may  circulate  to  the  ultimate  depreciation  of  the 
whole  moral  currency. 

M.  of  T.    Well,  I  realize  that  objection.    The  drama 


14  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

is  not  free  from  domestic  trouble,  so  to  speak,  on  the 
score;  and  I  must  do  my  best  to  meet  you.  But  you 
must  let  me,  for  the  purposes  of  argument,  idealize  my 
theatre  just  a  little.  For  we  are  talking  of  an  imagined 
future,  after  all  .  .  .  near  as  I  want  to  bring  it. 

M.  of  E.    By  all  means. 

M.  of  T.  Then  I  can  face  your  sternest  contentions. 
You  tell  me  that  the  theatre  does  not  .  .  .  you  imply 
that  it  cannot  .  .  .  rank  with  the  other  fine  arts.  Do 
you  mean  that  within  its  three  hours'  limit  no  possible 
drama  can  deal  adequately  with  great  subjects  unless, 
perhaps,  as  with  the  Greeks,  they  are  formalized  almost 
into  ritual. 

M.  of  E.  I  won't  dogmatise.  Possibly,  though,  one 
reaches  in  three  hours,  or  in  rather  less,  the  limit  of 
man's  capacity  to  absorb  such  a  potent  mixture  of 
emotion  and  thought. 

M.  of  T.  But  come  back,  for  a  moment,  to  the  actual 
present,  to  the  theatre  as  it  now  is,  and  to  what  does  seem 
to  me  this  perfectly  damnable  business  by  which  people 
.  .  .  young  people  too,  mostly  .  .  .  have  their  uncul- 
tured emotions  played  upon  night  after  night  by  an 
intellectually  seductive,  emotionally  cloying,  sexually 
provocative  and  altogether  irresponsible  entertainment. 
Do  you  approve  of  that.'^  Is  that  a  socially  sound  busi- 
ness? I  can  imagine  your  crying:  Down  with  the 
theatre  altogether.  I  cannot  think  how  you  are  content 
to  leave  it  as  it  is. 

M.  of  E.  Once  again,  I  believe  you  overrate  the 
effect  of  such  emotional  indulgence  upon  the  average 
man. 

M.  of  T.  Even  upon  the  average  young  man  .  .  . 
and  woman? 

M.  of  E.  Oil,  for  llirm  all  emotions  get  transmuted 
into  the  one  that  Nature  most  requires  them,  at  their 
time  of  life,  to  cultivate.  And  I  should  say  their 
imagination's   digestion  is   of  iron  .  .  .  especially    the 


THE    AUTHOR  S   PREJUDICES  15 

young   female's.      So   you    move    me   very    little   by 

"sexually    provocative"    and   "emotionally    cloying." 

Certainly    I  prefer   that   they    should    be 

stirred  to  very  outbursts  of  laughter  and 

tears,    and  for   the   sake   of  those   sanita-         influence 

rily  emotional  effects  I  am  quite  ready  to 

overlook  the  simplicity   and   stupidity  of  the  cause. 

But  when  you  say  "intellectually  seductive"  you  do 

touch  me  nearly,  for  it  is  these  j^oung  people's  brains 

that  get  green  sickness.     Unintelligence  I  can  forgive. 

But  false  intelligence  is  the  devil. 

M.  of  T.  Can't  they  digest  that  too,  and  throw  off 
the  effects  .f* 

M.  of  E.  No,  my  friend;  you  may  eat  too  much 
pudding,  and  a  good  game  of  football  will  free  you  from 
your  trouble.  But  don't  try  a  diet  of  drugs.  Young 
people  are  greedy  of  emotion,  or  shy  of  it.  To  the  aver- 
age adult  it  is  a  passing  distraction,  nothing  more.  .  .  . 

M.  of  T,    And  you  prefer  it  should  remain  so.'^ 

M.  of  E.  Frankly,  yes.  We  must  be  utilitarian. 
You  know  we're  still  in  the  stage  of  striving  .  .  .  for 
all  our  fine  talk  of  "higher"  things  ...  to  maintain 
our  poor  foothold  upon  even  physical  civilization.  If 
a  man  does  n't  respond  to  the  finer  stimuli,  it  is  because 
he  has  found  that  they  would  hinder  rather  than  help 
him  in  his  everyday  round.  And  I  don't  want  him  to 
be  constantly  distracted  by  a  sharpened  imagination 
from  his  dull  but  necessary  daily  work.  He  has  learnt 
that  it's  necessary;  frankly,  I  don't  want  him  to  find 
out  that  it 's  dull  .  .  .  for  his  own  sake. 

M.  of  T.  But  would  n't  that  be  a  path  to  enliven- 
ing it  and  so  enriching  it? 

M.  of  E.  No,  there  I'm  at  odds  with  you.  Art, 
with  its  exaltation  of  emotional  and  spiritual  standards, 
may  follow  in  the  wake  of  social  progress,  it  does  n't 
prompt  it.  You  'd  admit  that  of  all  the  other  fine  arts, 
I  think.    But  because  in  the  theatre  you  have  one  so 


16  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

simple,  so  democratic,  so  capable,  in  current  phrase,  of 
"direct  action"  upon  the  sensibilities  of  the  crowd, 
you  want  to  forge  it  into  a  weapon  (Forgive  my  cliches; 
I  am  not,  you  see,  an  artist!)  of  social  betterment.  You 
can't.  If  you  could  it  might  turn  double-edged,  and 
become,  I  do  think,  a  most  dangerous  one.  Yes,  art 
is  in  its  nature  anarchic.  Let  it  remain  so  then,  happily 
and  harmlessly,  and  keep  it  from  any  share  in  the  con- 
trol of  society. 

M.  of  T.  I'll  disagree  with  you  to  the  end  of  time. 
You  like  to  say  that  because  art  declines  measurement 
by  your  footrule.  Art  is  constructive,  but  it  constructs 
from  the  elements,  as  life  itself  does.  Refuse  it  right 
functioning,  and  in  its  neglect  and  degradation  it  does 
become  a  disintegrating  and  ...  as  I  hold  the  theatre 
of  to-day  to  be,  negatively,  at  least  ...  an  anti- 
social force. 

M.  of  E.  Then  you  must  reform  it  from  within, 
autonomously.  After  all,  your  industrial  problem  is 
not  an  insoluble  one,  and  in  the  last  instance  you  can 
do  without  the  loathed,  and  I  think  somewhat  libelled, 
business  man  better  than  he  can  do  without  you. 
Qualified  artists  in  combination  could  assert  something 
like  a  monopoly  value.  But  now  I  want  to  attack  you 
on  your  own  ground.  You  theatre  reformers  ...  I 
suppose  you  like  the  title  .  .  .  arc  not  single-minded. 
You  confuse  the  issue  you  present.  You  ask  me  for 
one  thing  when  you  really  want  another.  Come,  get 
on  your  guard.  Whatever  else  an  art  may  or  may 
not  be,  it  must,  to  be  healthy,  be  single-minded.  .  .  . 

M.  of  T.    Agreed. 

M.  of  E.     And  I,  personally,  should  add,  simple- 
minded.     Therefore,  when  you  make  this 

J  ®,  art,  and  try   to  make  me,  the  half-con- 

theatre  as  .  •  .•         i?  i  t  a  n 

cat's-paw        scious  victnn  oi  your  schemes,  1  tell  you 

you  '11  do  more  harm  to  the  drama  than 

good  to  the  theatre  containing  it,  and  consequently 


THE   author's   prejudices  17 

no  good  at  all,  in  the  end,  to  the  society  you  pretend 
to  set  out  to  serve. 

M.  of  T.  This  is  a  sounding  blow.  "Schemes" 
awakens  sinister  echoes.  Please  particularize  the  crime 
that  I  contemplate. 

M.  of  E.     Without  being  personal.'^ 

M.  of  T.     Oh,  be  personal  if  you  want  to  be. 

M.  of  E.  Well,  as  a  simple  instance,  will  you  admit 
that  your  anxiety  to  reorganize  the  theatre  hinges  in 
great  part  on  your  wish  to  get  a  certain  sort  of  play 
performed  which  does  n't  enjoy  much  public  favour 
now.f* 

M.  of  T.  Naturally.  Wait,  though,  I  see  where  you 
are  driving  me  .  .  . 

M.  of  E.  And  any  specimen  is  nearly  always  a 
"reforming"  sort  of  play,  is  n't  it.? 

M.  of  T.     I  make  no  more  admissions. 

M,  of  E.  And  is  it  only  a  coincidence  that  many  of 
you  theatre  reformers  are  out  after  reforming  the  rest 
of  the  universe,  too? 

M.  of  T.     What's  the  concrete  accusation? 

M.  of  E.  Simply  that  at  heart  you  care  little  about 
the  theatre  in  comparison  with  the  use  you  can  make 
of  it  to  forward  your  social  and  political  ideas. 

M.  of  T.  But  why,  in  heaven's  name,  should  a  man 
write  three  sentences  but  to  express  and  forward  an 
idea?  And  since  he's  a  social  and  political  animal, 
what  other  ideas  should  you  generally  expect  from  him? 
However,  don't  let's  come  down  to  scoring  these  barren 
points.  If  you'll  assure  me  that  you  don't  want  to 
turn  us  into  performing  poodles  I'll  own  up  that  the 
theatre,  with  its  seemingly  simple  art  and  its  direct 
appeal  .  .  .  the  mob  appeal,  though,  mind  you,  it  is 
I  who  condemn  ...  is  a  tempting  platform  for  the 
mere  lay  preacher. 

M.  of  E.  Whose  sermons,  being  out  of  place,  are 
dull  .  .  .  which  art  never  has  a  right  to  be. 


18  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

M.  of  T.  Not  duller  than  most  of  the  plays  meant 
merely  to  amuse,  as  no  sort  of  art  surely  should  ever 
be.  You  don't  admit  that?  I'll  argue  it  later  if  you 
like.  But  as  to  the  disingenuous  reformer,  take  this 
to  your  comfort.  The  theatre  is  very  old,  and  has 
some  of  the  wise  simplicity  of  age.  Given  time  .  .  . 
and  art  itself  never  lacks  time,  though  its  exemplars 
may  ...  it  can  endure  and  absorb  a  dozen  merely 
intellectual  "movements"  and  still  go  its  way.  We 
organize  and  combine  all  sorts  of  forces  to  make  a  mark, 
but  the  only  thing  that  leaves  one  is  genius.  And 
you  're  ready  to  welcome  any  species  of  that,  I  suppose. 

M.  of  E.  With  open  arms.  Please  show  me  how  to 
organize  it  into  existence. 

M.  of  T.  Patience,  patience  .  .  .  not  with  me  and 
my  arguments  so  much  as  with  the  poor  theatre  itself. 
Do  you  mind  my  parenthetically  remarking  on  the 
unreasonable  way  in  which  you  public  men  are  apt  to 
demand  genius  in  the  arts  as  the  only  justification 
for  their  existence?  If  lawyers  and  doctors  and  par- 
sons, civil  servants,  and  soldiers  could  claim  no  recog- 
nition, no  protection  for  their  callings,  except  on  such 
a  ground  .  .  .   ! 

M.  of  E.  Good!  One  to  you!  I  grant  you  that 
point. 

M.  of  T.  Very  well.  Arising  out  of  that  ...  as 
they  say  in  a  place  where  a  good  deal  of  co-operative 
dramatic  effect  is  expended,  and  might,  with  better 
training,  be  more  profitably  expended  .  .  .  you  admit, 
I  gather,  that,  of  all  the  arts,  the  most  dependent,  under 
modern  conditions,  upon  sheer  organizations  is  the 
theatre? 

M.  of  E.     Yes,  if  you  like. 

M.  of  T.  Now  I  must  trouble  you  for  a  moment 
Willi  some  economic  history.  Twenty-five  years  or  so 
back  the  English  theatre  began  to  face  .  .  .  belatedly, 
as  is   its   nature  .  .  .  reorganization  in  the  terms  of 


THE   author's   prejudices  19 

modern  industry.    Organically  the  theatre  was   an  in- 
dustry;  and  so  that  had  to  come,  whether  one  liked 
it  or  not.     Most   of  the  important   indi- 
viduals   concerned    did    not    like   it,    and       The 
would    not    face    it,   until    quite    recently       economics 

they     found     themselves     at    last    over-       „„j^^„ 

111  •  'Til  moaern 

whelmed,  protcstmg  and  bewailmg,  b}^  the       English 

accomplished  fact.  It  was  left  to  others  not  theatre 
so  intnnately  concerned,  but  able  therefore, 
perhaps,  to  take  a  wider  view,  to  foresee  the  coming 
change,  and  to  begin  to  struggle  for  the  theatre's  soul. 
For  that,  too,  was  finally  .  .  .  was  and  is,  as  we  are 
arguing  now  .  .  .  involved.  They  were  the  "reform- 
ers," as  you  call  them:  on  their  behalf  I  won't  resent 
the  name.  They  saw  the  theatre  as  a  social  service,  not 
first  .  .  .  for  if  first  generally  last  we  find  ...  as  a 
money-making  concern.  And  so  they  urged  that,  by 
one  scheme  or  another,  the  community  must  be  made 
responsible  for  its  welfare.  The  money-makers  did  not 
hurry  to  the  struggle.  They  saw  that  the  industrial 
development  must  come,  and  waited  for  an  easy  mar- 
ket ...  a  good  vantage.  But  straightway  the  indi- 
viduals most  nearly  concerned  .  .  .  individualists,  in- 
deed, who  saw  "their"  theatre  as  a  private  estate  "situ- 
ate" very  exclusively  in  the  West  End  of  London  and 
to  be  parcelled  out  conveniently  among  them:  actor- 
managers  their  generic  name !  .  .  .  took  on  a  fight  with 
the  reformers  in  the  name  (God  bless  us!)  of  fine  art 
and  freedom.  I  fear  >nou'd  have  been  on  their  side. 
For  you  still  take  your  stand  under  their  showy  banner, 
unaware,  apparently,  that  this  particular  battle  is  over. 
It  is  over.  And  what  was  tfie  course  of  the  fight  .^  And 
who,  does  it  turn  out,  was  the  real  enemy?  Why,  the 
money-maker,  of  course,  who  ...  in  his  own  good 
time  ,  .  .  took  them,  the  fools,  in  the  rear.  Yes,  I 
repeat  without  apology  .  .  .  the  fools!  They  should 
have  known  that  the  reformers'  cause  must  finally  be 


20  THE    EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

theirs.  But  no,  they  would  go  cockily  on  until  the 
giant  Financial  Interest,  once  under  way,  now  swal- 
lows them  one  by  one,  each  at  a  bite.  Some  of  them 
personally  and  professionally  survive,  partnered  as  a 
rule  with  business  men.  But  ask  them  the  difference 
between  their  old  situation  and  the  new  one  if,  for  a 
minute,  box  office  success  gives  them  the  go-by. 

M.  of  E.  I'll  wager  that  they  still  prefer  the  busi- 
ness yoke  of  the  man  who  makes  money  out  of  them, 
and  lets  them  get  as  much  of  it  as  they  can  bargain  for, 
to  the  artistic  yoke  which  would  make  of  them  lay 
figures  to  illustrate  this  new  "sociological"  fashion  and 
that. 

M.  of  T.  Well,  whether  or  no,  I  fear  their  tastes 
and  troubles  are  no  longer  important.  They  have 
counted  themselves  out  of  the  main  fight.  They  must  do 
now  what  their  capitalists  tell  them.  "Backers,"  these 
gentlemen  used  to  be  called :  they  are  well  to  the  front 
now!  But  to  come  again  to  the  artistic  sins  of  the 
reformers.  Was  n't  it  almost  inevitable  that  men  bring- 
ing fresh  blood  to  an  art  which  had  come  to  exist,  you  '11 
admit,  much  in  appearance  and  little  in  content,  should 
believe  that,  for  redressing  the  balance,  only  ideas 
mattered  at  all.^^ 

M.  of  E.    But  why  not  artistic  ideas  .f^ 

M.  of  T.  But  when  are  ideas  not  artistic  ideas  .'^ 
I  utterly  resent  the  implication  that  art  .  .  .  any  art, 
but  most  especially  the  simple,  democratic  art  of  the 
theatre  ...  is  to  be  divorced  from  the  things  of  every- 
day life.  It  only  thrives  upon  fellowshi])  with  them. 
Moreover,  I'll  assert  that  if  it  has  drifted  hopelessly 
out  of  touch  with  the  current  of  men's  minds,  it  must 
begin  its  association  again  as  a  servant,  not  as  an  equal. 
Precious  lucky  llie  theatre  m'ght  think  itself  that  men 
and  women  with  a  lively  sense  of  what  was  im])ortant 
to  the  world  at  the  moment  should  take  the  trouble 
to  make  some  artistic  use  of  it.    And  it  was  the  business 


THE  author's  prejudices  21 

of  the  interpretative  artists  already  in  possession  .  .  . 
it  was  their  duty  ...  to  help  these  interlopers,  to 
exploit  them  moreover,  if  they  could,  to  the  theatre's 
profit.  The  newcomers  were  not  out  after  conquest 
and  exclusion.  There  need  have  been  no  quarrel  ex- 
cept with  certain  self-satisfied  people,  who  were  not 
only  too  lazy  or  indifferent  to  use  the  theatre  for  the 
expression  of  any  ideas  themselves,  but  objected  to 
their  own  easy  livelihood  being  discredited  by  those 
who  could  and  would.  The  "reformers"  made  every 
effort  to  work  even  with  them,  only  to  be  snubbed  and 
sneered  at,  or,  at  best,  to  be  patronized.  Men  of  spirit 
don't  stand  that.  And  how  you,  as  a  public  man,  dare 
to  complain  that  we  occupied  ourselves  with  the  social- 
ization of  the  theatre  to  the  prejudice  of  its  artistry, 
when  it  was  your  work  we  were  doing  at  the  expense 
of  our  own.  .  .  . 

M.  of  E.  Steady;  this  is  the  point  we're  to  discuss. 
Why  is  it  my  work.f'    That's  what  you  have  to  prove. 

M.  of  T.  I'm  out  to.  That  was  merely  my  answ^er 
in  passing  to  your  gibe  at  the  "reformers,"  men  who 
were  not  of  the  theatre  by  training  or  altogether  per- 
haps at  heart,  but  who  saw  in  it  something  more  than 
an  amusement  or  an  easy  method  of  making  money, 
and  who  therefore,  when  they  came  to  work  in  it, 
turned  some  of  their  attention  to  things  that,  I  grant 
you,  are  not  strictly  of  the  art  of  the  theatre.  I  dare 
say  it  had  from  the  beginning  an  ill  effect  on  their 
artistry.  It  is,  you  may  argue,  just  as  bad  to  be  think- 
ing while  you  write  or  produce  a  play  either  of  all  the 
social  evils  you  mean  to  expose,  or  the  rest  of  the 
social  service  your  theatre  is  doing,  as  it  is  to  be  cal- 
culating the  money  it  will  earn.  But  if  these  men  re- 
main even  now  too  self-consciously  the  preachers  and 
politicians  of  the  theatre,  unable  to  lose  themselves  in 
the  happiness  of  their  work,  once  again,  is  n't  it  largely 
because  the  burden  of  your  neglect  has  been  so  heavy 


22  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

upon  them?  So  that,  even  from  your  point  of  view, 
would  n't  you  have  been  wdser  to  take  public  responsi- 
bility for  the  organizing  side  of  the  job?  For,  with 
that  done,  only  quite  nice,  harmless,  "artistic"  people 
would,  we're  to  take  it,  have  been  attracted  to  the 
theatre  at  all.  And  if  any  of  these  damnable  reformers 
had  happened  to  slip  in  they  could  have  slaked  their 
unholy  passions  upon  systems  of  lighting,  or  costume 
designs,  or  the  setting  of  EHzabethan  plays.  Still,  the 
mischief  might  n't  have  stopped  there.  Reform  is  like 
jealousy,  and  makes  the  meat  it  feeds  on  (notice,  please, 
the  appropriately  theatrical  allusion).  A  passion  for 
reform,  according  to  the  non-reformers,  springs  from 
jealousy,  nothing  more  or  less.  So,  once  they  had 
murdered  the  artistic  conventions  they  would  have 
sidled  for  bigger  game,  and  instead  of  the  present  paltry 
misuse  of  energy  you  complain  of,  you  might  have 
had  to  trace  a  whole  social  revolution  back  to  —  say  — 
a  production  of  King  Lear.  It  is  really  a  terrible  prob- 
lem, this  of  getting  people  to  keep  their  noses  to  the 
grindstone  and  mind  their  own  business.  And  the 
theatre  really  is  not  a  good  place  in  which  to  attempt 
a  pattern  solution.  For  if  it  is  to  be  alive  at  all  it  must 
be  concerned  with  the  life  all  around  it,  and  that  only 
makes  its  merry  men  livelier  still,  more  inquisitive, 
more  impertinent.  Come,  why  don't  you  suppress  the 
poisonous  thing  altogether? 

M.  of  E.  Well  .  .  .  taking  public  charge  of  it  might 
be  one  way  of  dishing  the  reformers  and  of  doing  that. 

M.  of  f.  I'm  ready  to  run  the  risk.  Give  me  for 
the  theatre  the  conscience  of  a  public 
Authority's  service  ...  I  return  you  compliment  for 
°^^the^°'^  snub  ...  and  I'll  trust  its  own  innate 
theatre  ^^^®  ^^  defeat  any  bureaucratic  stranglings 

more  easily  than  it  manages  to  escape  from 
the  tangle  of  money-making.  Art  for  art's  sake  may 
be  a  good  or  a  bad  cry.    Personally,  I  think  it's  a  bad 


THE  author's  prejudices  23 

one  on  all  counts.  But  there  is  certainly  no  art  less 
fitted  to  respond  to  it  than  the  dramatic  art.  And 
again,  while  poetry,  painting,  sculpture  can  exist  for 
a  little  in  the  cloister  or  the  desert,  as  a  reflection  from 
the  past  or  a  promise  for  the  future,  the  drama  .  .  . 
simple,  democratic,  crude  if  you  will  .  .  .  must  be  of 
its  age.  Therefore,  even  if  I  cared  for  nothing  else  in 
the  theatre  but  the  quintessential  art  of  the  theatre 
.  .  .  ah,  that  stamps  me  as  the  most  pestilent  of  re- 
formers, does  n't  it?  ...  I  should  welcome  its  present 
attachment  to  some  larger  idea,  to  drag  it  abreast  of 
the  times. 

M.  of  E.  As  an  artist,  how  you  ought  to  hate  that 
phrase ! 

M.  of  T.  .  .  .  abreast  of  the  need  of  the  times. 
Here  is  the  theatre  in  the  dumps.  .  .  . 

M.  of  E.  I  don't  maintain  that.  I  don't  admit  it. 
And,  yet  again,  why  am  I  to  be  called  on  for  the  help- 
ing hand.'^ 

M.  of  T.  Confound  your  condescension!  I'll  be 
offering  to  help  you  in  a  minute.  It  is  dignified,  and 
it  is  historically  right,  that  an  art,  bankrupt  of  con- 
sequence, should  go  into  service  so  as  to  establish 
itself  again.  Did  not  the  Greek  drama  spring  from 
religious  ritual?  It  at  least  had  the  form,  it  carried 
the  weight  of  accepted  ceremony. 

M.  of  E.  Am  I  to  take  the  appeal  to  history  seri- 
ously? 

M.  of  T.  Well,  like  better  men,  for  bigger  ends, 
I  twist  the  picture  to  my  purpose.  But  one's  view  of 
a  winding  street  must  depend  —  must  n't  it?  —  upon 
the  point  at  which  one  turns  to  look  back  on  it. 

M.  of  E.  Hark  to  the  advocate  of  the  drama  as  the 
saviour  of  society!  And  you  ask  me  to  magnify  such 
methods  by  my  approval  .  .  .  and,  what's  more,  to 
multiply  your  chances  of  using  them ! 

M.  of  T.    Well,  as  a  public  man,  impressing  on  us 


24  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

your  view  of  the  present,  I  hope  you've  nothing  worse 
on  your  conscience.  If  we  can't  find  you  out,  though, 
that 's  our  fault.  However,  you  may  neglect  my  his- 
tory when  the  practical  present-day  questions  come  to 
be  answered  ...  as  I  fear  you  would  indeed,  however 
much  you  respected  it.  And  you  need  n't  grant  me  the 
Greeks  .  .  .  and  I'll  skip  the  Romans. 

M.ofE.     Thank  you. 

M.  of  T.  But  how  did  the  drama  struggle  to  co- 
herent life  again  out  of  the  Dark  Ages.?  By  clinging 
to  the  skirts  of  the  Church  or  the  Guilds.  Elizabethan 
players,  remember,  were  the  servants  of  this  lord  or 
that.  The  best  of  them  were  the  Queen's  servants. 
That  was  n't  mere  snobbishness,  you  know:  they  were 
formally  a  part  of  her  household. 

M.  of  E.    But  they  played  to  the  groundlings. 

M.  of  T.  So  did  she!  *  The  tie  loosened  later  into 
the  quite  formal  relationship  with  the  patent  theatres, 
and  has  even  outlasted  their  dissolution.  ^Y!tness  the 
institution  of  the  censorship  in  the  Lord  Chamberlain's 
office.  The  best  excuse  for  that  foolish  business  would 
be  a  royal  theatre  supported  by  the  Privy  Purse. 

M.  of  E.  But  that  would  hardly  suit  your  reformer. 
I  remark  to  you  that  these  player-folk  were  pretty 
severely  kept  in  their  place  in  those  halcyon  days. 

M.  of  T.  That  mattered  little  beside  the  fact  that 
they  had  their  place.  How  long  would  they  have  sur- 
vived interference  without  it.?  Of  course,  I  don't  want 
them  thrust  back  in  it  now.  What  suited  that  time 
does  n't  suit  this.    But  notice,  please,  that  the  theatre 

*  Did  contemporary  critics  complain  of  it?  England  has  had 
great  poiilical  performers  since  to  whom  she  has  given  more  dubious 
reception.  But  one  finds  an  instance  of  tlie  histrionic  temperament 
coming  to  its  own  again  in  a  note  of  Sir  Jolm  SI«>lton's  upon  meet- 
ing Disraeli  in  18(i7:  "They  say.  and  say  truly  enough,  'What 
an  actor  the  man  is';  and  yet  the  ultimate  imj)ression  is  of  absolute 
sincerity  and  unreserve."  —  Vol.  IV  of  the  Monypcny-Buckle 
"Life." 


THE  author's  prejudices  25 

is  but  one  among  many  crafts  that  have  waked  up 
lately  to  the  further  implications  of  their  freedom  to 
make  all  the  money  they  can,  or  starve. 

M.  of  E.  Economically  speaking,  of  course,  why  not 
to  make  all  the  money  there  is  to  make  and  still  to 
starve? 

M.  of  T.  Why  not,  indeed  ...  as  the  Russian 
proletarian  discovers?  And  while  that  reduction  to 
absurdity  is  being  reached,  still  to  be  starved  .  .  . 
they  themselves  and  all  the  rest  of  us,  their  customers 
...  of  all  the  things  due  to  them  and  from  them 
that  don't  get  quoted  at  a  market-rate.  But  men  are 
not  born  doctrinaires,  thank  God!  They  do  not  come 
into  this  world  either  as  little  individualists  or  little 
socialists,  but  as  something  more  satisfyingly  human 
than  either.  And  where  this  impending  fool's  tragedy 
has  been  sensed,  watch  their  efforts  .  .  .  scattered  and 
contradictory,  no  doubt,  since,  born  to  this  particular 
inheritance  of  anarchy  that  troubles  you  so  little,  they 
can't  quite  forswear  such  capital  as  they  have  all  for 
the  sake  of  future  interest  ...  to  struggle  back  into 
some  sort  of  mutually  helpful  state  of  dignity  and 
safety. 

M.  of  E.  And,  pray  .  .  .  letting  the  rest  of  the 
wide  world  slide  for  the  moment,  as  you  conscientiously 
can,  I  assure  you  .  .  .  what  stands  in  the  theatre's 
way? 

M.  of  T.  I  grant  you,  mainly  our  own  confusion  of 
thought  and  purpose.  We  still  have  to  discover  .  .  . 
and  come  to  a  sufficient  measure  of  agreement  upon 
what  we  want.  There  are  efforts  in  plenty  and  experi- 
ments enough,  but  they  are  particularist  still,  and  they 
show  little  perception  of  any  idea  of  the  theatre  that 
could  enmesh  and  might  reconcile  them  all.  Play- 
wrights collogue  together;  the  training  of  actors  is  in 
hand;  there's  an  actors'  strike  in  America;  in  England 
the  Actors'  Association,  after  years  of  uncomfortable 


2b  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

and  unprofitable  sitting  on  the  fence,  dubs  itself  a  trade 
union.  There  are  village  theatres,  community  theatres, 
repertory  theatres,  clubs  and  leagues  and  committees 
of  one  sort  and  another;  on  paper,  in  embryo,  promising 
well,  doing  nicely  now,  or  gasping  for  breath.  It's 
all  very  interesting,  very  hopeful,  rather  exasperating. 

M.  of  E.  Well,  then,  go  ahead  on  those  lines,  and 
when  you  and  your  fellow  enthusiasts  have  gathered 
enough  strength,  drop  your  differences,  fight  the  com- 
mercialism you  protest  against,  and  then  .  .  . 

M.  of  T.  But  no  mere  discrediting  of  commercialism 
will  content  me.  I  don't  even  trouble  to  attack  it, 
for  I  see  it  beaten  in  its  very  victory. 

M.  of  E.     A  familiar  paradox ! 

M.  of  T.  And  in  this  case  a  very  obvious  one.  The 
commercialists  have  won  everything  that  I'm  not  fight- 
ing for,  and  they  are  quite  content  with  their  spoils. 
I've  nothing  against  them,  then.  They'll  go  their 
prosperous  way  and  I'll  follow  my  star.  We  can  be 
quite  good  friends.  And  I'm  only  thankful  that  the 
general  result  of  their  victory,  and  nothing  else  at  all, 
should  now  so  nakedly  appear.  Does  it  content  you 
.  .  .  this  is  the  question  I'm  framing  in  every  form  I 
can  ...  to  see  the  whole  power  of  the  theatre  absorbed 
unashamedly  in  the  greatest  entertainment  of  the 
greatest  number  upon  the  best  cash  terms,  to  sec  it 
making  nothing  but  a  mob  appeal.''  For  is  a  mob  only 
a  danger  when  it  gathers  in  ill-dressed  crowds?  What 
of  the  well-dressed  mob  that  makes  up  a  dliuior-i)arty 
of  ten;  the  ten  thousand  mobs  of  a  hundred  or  so,  each 
calling  itself  the  best  set  in  its  own  dowdy,  respect- 
able suburl);  the  provincial  mobs  .  .  .you'll  find  a  dozen 
different  ones  in  every  cathedral  town;  the  mob  iiuui- 
merable  of  hard-headed,  practical  people;  the  clerical 
inol),  IJie  edurali()n;d  mob,  the  artistic  mob,  the  medi- 
(•al  luol),  tlu^  sj)<)rtiiig  mob?  Tlie  theatro's  l)usiness 
to-day   is    to    talk   flattering  nonsense  to   these  good 


THE  author's  prejudices  27 

people.  It  may  be  complimentary  or  abusive  non- 
sense almost  indifferently  if  only  it  will  familiarly  echo 
them,  so  that  they  in  turn  can  effortlessly  echo  it,  till 
voice  and  echo,  indistinguishable  from  each  other,  de- 
teriorate into  a  meaningless  vacuity. 

M.  of  E.  Excellent  vituperation,  no  doubt.  You 
combine  all  the  usual  targets  for  abuse  into  one.  But 
at  the  worst  this  makes  up,  I  repeat,  a  very  negative 
danger. 

M.  of  T.  The  worst  dangers  are  negative,  and  the 
longest  breeding.    An  artist  must  loathe  the  mob  mind. 

M.  of  E.  No  doubt.  But  we're  back  where  we 
started.  This  was  your  original  trouble,  more  or  less. 
I  could  agree  that  a  self-respecting  way  out  would  be 
for  the  real  workers  in  the  theatre  to  recover  control 
over  their  own  industry.     But  you  won't  take  that. 

M.  of  T.    It  would  be  no  way  out.    For  I  won't  admit 
that  the  theatre  is  only,  or  chiefly,  an  industry,  or  that 
the  people  who  make  a  living  by  it  are  the 
only  people  concerned.     I  want  to  fasten    (jj-^ma's 
responsibility  upon  ijou.  industrial 

M.   of  E.      Well,    I  'm  still   waiting   to    difficulty  is 
undergo  the  operation.  that  an  art 

M.  of  T.  It  now  begins.  Where  any  shall  not  be 
sort  of  art  is  concerned  we  are  apt  to  talk,  ^^  ^^  "  " 
are  n't  we,  without  knowing  perhaps  quite  what  we 
mean,  of  men  and  women  having  a  "gift"  for  the  thing.f^ 
An  absolute  gift  is  it,  or  one  to  be  held  in  trust  and 
passed  on? 

M.  of  E.  Well,  if  you  bury  that  talent  you  cer- 
tainly get  no  good  of  it,  you  can't  even  dig  it  up  un- 
impaired.   Still,  there's  a  market  price  for  the  use  of  it. 

M.  of  T.  Certainly,  we  must  most  of  us  earn  our 
living  from  day  to  day.  But  is  n't  it  a  rather  startling 
fact  ...  at  least  it  should  surely  startle  the  commer- 
cialists  if  they  would  stop  to  consider  it  .  .  .  that  by 
law  one   cannot  perpetuate  property   in   imaginative 


28  THE    EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

work.*  Think  of  the  copyright  laws,  of  the  hard  fight 
there  was  even  for  a  term  of  hfetime  and  fifty  years. 
What's  the  other  side  to  that  question,  if  not  some 
conviction  that  the  power  to  write  plays,  books,  and 
poems  comes  as  a  gift  to  the  writer,  and  so  must  in 
honour  be  given  again  .^^ 

M.ofE.     Well? 

M.  of  T.  What  I  first  want  to  fix  upon  you  is  a 
due  responsibility  in  accepting  the  gift.  Admit  the 
principle. 

M.   of  E.     I   am   thinking,  with  some 
•  r.  .  amusement,  of  the  practical  consequence 

society  ^^  ^^^  pictures  and  sculpture,  for  instance, 

coming  as  gifts  to  the  nation  fifty  years 
after  their  authors  were  dead  and  either  forgotten  or 
just  beginning  to  be  thought  of  again.  Would  they  then 
have  to  be  solemnly  consigned  by  some  Ministry  of  Fine 
Arts  either  to  a  public  museum  or  a  public  bon-fire? 

M.  of  T.  Ah,  these  were  the  things  that  the  nine- 
teenth century  really  liked  to  call  works  of  art,  con- 
veniently concrete  things,  "portable  property."  And 
please  note  that  this  was  what  gave  the  artist  .  .  . 
pre-eminently  when  dead,  but  the  living  exemplars 
could  not  then  be  denied  it  .  .  .  the  dignity  of  his  cap- 
ital A;  these  comfortable  fortunes  that  could  be  made 
by  manoeuvring  his  work. 

M.  of  E.  Yes,  I've  been  trying  lately  to  buy  a  good 
Cotman  for  our  local  picture  gallery. 

M.  of  T.  I  think  I  hat  a  modern  Dante  might  rank 
picture-dealers  with  Simonists. 

M.  of  E.  On  the  other  hand,  if  you  buy  from  taste 
and  not  for  names  or  schools  there  are  good  enough 
pictures  going  cheap  still.     However,  we  digress. 

*  Actors  and  sitif^ors,  it  may  be  said,  who  naturally  cannot  per- 
petuate property  wliicli  resides  in  themselves  beyond  their  own  life- 
time, "create"  nothing  in  any  case.  One  could  dispute  upon  this 
point  too.    But  the  main  argument  would  not  be  affected. 


>rHE  author's  prejudices  29 

M.  of  T.  But  take  book  copyrights.  They  fall  in 
due  time  into  public  domain:  printing  is  (compara- 
tively) cheap,  our  benefits  in  literature  due  to  survive 
will  distribute  themselves  somehow.  That  interpreted 
the  public  attitude,  did  n't  it  .  .  .  when  printing  was 
cheap? 

M.  of  E.  Yes,  I  admit  this  difficulty.  There  was 
always  the  question  though  over  books  that  called  for 
any  care  in  production,  whether,  when  everyone  might 
print  them,  it  was  worth  anyone's  while  to.  And  now 
that  printing's  not  cheap  any  longer  and  is  not  appar- 
ently ever  going  to  be  .  .  .  !  The  other  day  a  pub- 
lisher complained  to  me  that  he  could  live  upon  new 
novels,  but  that  for  this  year  he'd  have  to  leave 
unprinted  a  hundred  thousand  copies  of  books  of 
learning. 

M.  of  T.  Yes,  and  think  of  the  work  done  for  liter- 
ature and  the  wages  paid  for  it  .  .  .  and  the  no- wages. 
I  won't  complain  of  that,  since  the  scholars  don't, 
though  I  think  they  are  hardly  devoted  to  poverty  in 
itself.  But  could  the  work  itself  be  done  at  all  but  for 
some  endowment.'' 

M.  of  E.  No,  I  '11  admit  that  practically  it  could  n't 
be. 

M.  of  T.  And  when  we  come  to  the  problem  of  the 
theatre,  which  has  never  been  helped  out,  as  literature 
has,  by  the  blessing  (and  curse!)  of  cheap  printing, 
which  can  find  no  old  endowments  to  capture  and 
direct  to  its  needs  .  .  .  well,  I  admit  it's  a  tough 
problem;  I  don't  blame  you  for  shirking  it.  But  won't 
you  also  admit  the  principle  that  you,  as  trustee  for 
the  public,  cannot  in  decency  come  into  the  inheritance 
of  these  dramatic  gifts  and  acquire  no  responsibility 
for  their  right  use.'' 

31.  of  E.  I  '11  admit  .  .  .  you  '11  smile  at  the  banality 
.  .  .  that  something  ought  to  be  done  for  Shakespeare. 

M.  of  T.     A  Shakespeare  theatre.' 


30  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

M.  of  E.    Yes. 

M.  of  T.  I  don't  smile.  I  am  too  angrily  weary 
with  the  years  of  balked  advocacy  of  such  a  simple 
.  .  .  surely  there  could  not  be  a  simpler,  a  more  ob- 
vious duty  towards  such  a  name  and  such  a  fact  in 
English  culture  than  to  make  a  home  in  which  his  plays 
may  live. 

M.  of  E.     But  they  do  live. 

M.  of  T.  How  many  have  you  seen  in  the  last  ten 
years.'^ 

M.  of  E.  I  read  them.  Yes,  I  assure  you,  from  time 
to  time  I  really  do  read  them. 

M.  of  T.  About  as  many  people  can  get  at  Shakes- 
peare's plays  by  reading  them  as  can  appreciate 
Beethoven's  Symphonies  by  fingering  them 
Society's  out  on  the  piano.  However,  your  admis- 
bmtv^n"  ^^°"'  ^^^^^  though  it  be,  is  enough.  For 
accepting  ^"^®  admit  you  should  care  for  Shakes- 
the  gift  peare's  plays  and  you  're  landed  with  some 

responsibility  towards  the  actors  of  them, 
and  towards  the  actor's  art  in  general  and  so 
towards  other  plays  ...  the  inheritance  of  the  future. 
How  you  discharge  the  responsibility  is  a  minor 
matter.  There  are  a  hundred  right  ways  of  doing 
it  to  be  found;  and  then  there'll  be  the  interest 
of  finding  the  hundred-and-first.  Provide  me  my  artists 
somehow  with  the  machinery  for  giving  .  .  .  that  is 
all  I  ask.  They  are,  the  most  of  them,  so  anxious  to 
give  if  only  the  machinery'  were  there.  And  the  average 
man,  I  believe,  is  innately  enough  of  an  artist  to  believe 
that.  My  own  belief,  indeed,  is  that  the  average  man 
himself  is  in  a  like  generous  case;  but  that  is  l)cside 
the  point.  Compel  us  artists  to  make,  or  to  sell  our- 
selves to  those  who  can  make,  of  our  art  a  commercial 
machine;  or  lo  compel e  for  capital  and  profit  among 
ourselves  and  wilh  all  I  he  other  profit-making  indus- 
tries, and,  of  course,  it's  a  machine  forgetting  we  pro- 


THE  author's  prejudices  31 

duce,  and  the  gospel  of  getting  will  dominate  us.  Be- 
sides that  (you're  right)  the  edge  of  art  is  blunted  in 
men  who  are  too  much  occupied  with  the  machine. 
For  every  art  and  for  most  industries  to-day  the  com- 
mon problem  is  to  devise  machinery  for  their  conver- 
sion to  public  use  that  will  not  impoverish  the  product. 
This  is  notably  and  tragically  true  of  the  art  of  the 
theatre.  All  the  better  for  the  theatre,  perhaps,  if  it 
can  march  with  its  fellows  towards  a  general  solution. 
And  I  want  to  admit  all  its  special  difficulties.  So 
please  overlook  it  if  I  seem  here  to  speak  a  little  un- 
kindly of  a  calling  I  love,  and  of  fellow-workers  in  it 
whom  I  have  watched  with  sympathy  and  admiration 
fighting  their  hard,  blind  battles. 

The  chief  difficulty,  I  repeat,  of  doing  anything  for 
the  theatre  of  to-day  is  that  it  is  so  confoundedly 
prosperous,  if  we  judge  it  ...  as  it  is  popular  to  do, 
as  it  asks  us  to  judge  .  .  .  only  by  its  successes.  It  is 
much  spoiled,  though  more  than  a  little  despised.  The 
weakness  of  personal  vanity  and  the  hunger  for  passing 
praise  ...  all  about  the  theatre  passes  so  quickly  .  .  . 
are  played  upon  and  themselves  made  to  pay.  Its  duty 
to  be  of  the  age  and  of  the  hour  is  debauched  to  a  mere 
appetite  for  the  favour  of  the  moment.  It  sustains 
itself  amid  such  golden  clouds  of  illusion  that  one  finds 
it  hard,  to  begin  with,  to  turn  the  thoughts  of  the 
theatre  itself  to  a  soberer  standard;  and  even  harder 
to  persuade  men  like  yourself,  for  instance,  that  some- 
thing must  really  be  done  to  save  it  from  this  damna- 
tion of  so-called  success,  and  a  something  which  .  .  . 
much  as  it  can  be  asked  to  do  for  itself  .  .  .  the  theatre 
cannot  be  expected  to  do.  Especially  so  when  that 
something  will  not  come  easily  to  anyone's  hand,  will 
not  be  cheap,  will  need  planning  and  replanning,  ex- 
perim.ent  here  and  there,  will  ask  for  the  patient  work 
of  years  to  make  up  for  the  wasted  time  and  the  efforts 
run  to  seed  before  one  can  even  hope  to  build  the 


32  THE   EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

theatre  of  one's  faith,  to  endow  it  with  a  success  so 
real  and  constant  as  to  be  quite  unnoticed. 
M.  of  E.  Yes,  that  is  the  only  sort. 
M.  of  T.  But  if  the  men  you  stand  for  will  do  for 
the  theatre  the  one  thing  they  can  do  for  it,  the  one 
thing  it  can't  do  for  itself,  if  they  will  somehow  assure 
it  a  rightful  place  in  the  settled  economy  of  society, 
then  .  .  .  yes,  I  promise  you,  or  if  not  you,  your 
grandsons  .  .  .  that  there  shall  be  established  among 
them,  as  one  of  the  means  to  their  earthly  salvation, 
what  I  will  be  bold  to  describe  as  a  church  of  art.  A 
body  of  men  and  women  who  will  bring  their  humour, 
their  fancy,  passion,  and  thought  to  be  clarified  and 
formulated  in  the  terms  of  this  art  of  the  drama.  Paint- 
ing, architecture,  and  music  .  .  .  that  you  are  so  ready 
to  glorify  .  .  .  will  take  their  share  in  the  work;  for 
the  theatre  is  the  meeting-place  of  many  arts.  If  you  '11 
not  have  my  simile  of  the  church,  I'll  fall  back  on 
chapel,  and  ask  you  to  remember,  too,  what  chapels 
called  meeting-houses  have  meant  in  their  time  to 
England  and  to  New  England.  And  this  new  meeting- 
house .  .  .  with  its  doctrines  worked  out  in  a  human 
medium,  its  range  from  past  to  future,  its  analysis  in 
method  and  synthesis  in  effect,  .  .  .  will  be,  by  virtue 
of  the  unity  in  diversity  for  which  it  must  strive,  a 
microcosm,  not  only  of  the  social  world  as  it  moves, 
laughs,  weeps  before  our  eyes,  but  as  it  has  a  sublimer 
being  in  the  souls  of  men. 

M.  of  E.  And  you  ask  me  to  hclj)  turn  a  harmless 
amusement  into  something  so  portentous  as  that? 

M.ofT.  Don't  be  alarmed.  You  won't  be  "saved" 
in  a  hurry.  That's  the  advantage  of  the  theatre  as  a 
moral  force.  It  can't  go  very  far  ahead  unless  you 
keep  pace  with  it. 

M.  of  E.  And  I  am  unregenerately  just  abreast  of 
it  now,  you  tliiuk? 

M.  of  T.    I'll  answer  your  irony  seriously.    I  don't 


THE  author's  prejudices  33 

know.  There  is  n't  a  theatre  to  measure  you  by. 
There's  a  mass  of  material  to  make  one  of:  plays, 
mostly  on  bookshelves,  actors  with  a  xhere  is 
nightly  habit  of  going  through  the  mo-  no  such 
tions  of  acting.  There  are  even  the  mak-  thing  as  a 
ings  of  an  audience,  if  one  may  judge  by  theatre  in 
the  occasional  grumbling  .  .  .  ^^  ^^ 

M.  of  E.  But  we  should  have  defined  our  terms 
to  start  with.    What,  then,  do  you  mean  by  a  theatre.'* 

M.  of  T.  Not  one  of  these  houses  of  entertainment 
that  you  now  walk  tolerantly  into  and  contemptuously 
out  of. 

M.  of  E.  Not  if  the  entertainment's  so  bettered  that 
tolerance  turns  into  enthusiasm.'* 

M.ofT.     No. 

M.  of  E.  Well,  positively  then,  what  do  you  mean 
by  a  theatre? 

M.  of  T.  That  we  can't  take  much  further,  I'm 
afraid,  by  the  method  of  question  and  answer. 

M.  of  E.  Then,  to  follow  up  the  jargon  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  had  n't  you  better  proceed  to  draft  your 
bill?  But  is  that,  by  the  way,  the  larger  idea  you  want 
to  tack  your  renascent  art  to? 

M.  of  T.     What  larger  idea? 

M.  of  E.    The  drama  of  the  popular  assembly. 

M.  of  T.  Don't  you  think  that  the  present  per- 
formances in  that  particular  .  .  .  and  rather  unpopular 
.  .  .  assembly  are  often  pretty  poor? 

M.  of  E.  There  I  counter  you  yet  once  more. 
Heaven  forbid  that  with  politics  national,  social,  and 
industrial  developing  into  a  game  for  everyone  to  play 
we  should  come  to  rely  on  easy  effects  of  oratory.  Let's 
have  the  substance  of  what 's  to  be  said  as  artlessly  put 
as  possible;  the  better  can  the  worth  of  it  be  tested.  If 
you  want  to  turn  us  into  a  melodramatic  nation  .  .  . 
thank  you,  I  'd  sooner  you  did  n't. 

M.  of  T.    But  you  don't  counter  me.    You  only  show 


34  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

me  wliat  miles  apart  our  minds  upon  this  matter  are 
still.  You  think  about  the  performers.  My  trouble, 
to  begin  with,  is  the  audience.  I  grant  you  they're 
gullible,  and  by  coarse  phrases  moreover,  not  even  by 
fine  ones.  But  you  show  me  that  you  —  even  you  — 
are  equally  ready  to  be  taken  in  by  artlessness.  You 
don't  really  think  that  the  more  incompetent  a  man  is 
at  expressing  himself  the  more  able  and  honest  he  is 
likely  to  be.  Suppose  we  set  ourselves  to  prevent  people 
being  imposed  on  by  absence  of  oratory,  also.  For  the 
larger  idea  I  hitch  on  to  is  simply  to  make  the  drama, 
its  appreciation  and  its  practice  .  .  .  and  its  applica- 
tion through  its  practice  ...  a  common  factor  in  the 
community's  education. 

M.  of  E.  You  want,  do  you,  to  make  me  a  present 
of  the  theatre  ...  of  the  whole  blessed  thing? 

M.  of  T.    You've  called  me  a  reformer 
The  larger       ^^^  j  j^.^^^  ^,^  protested.    But  I  have  one 

drama  key-belief  by  which  I  condition  my  adher- 

ence to  any  stated  reform.  Does  it  tend 
to  produce  a  greater  number  of  more  fully  and  freely 
developed  human  beings,  and  ...  to  push  the  test 
further,  by  the  present  most  urgent  demands  of  our 
civilization  ...  of  more  co-operative  human  beings? 
Can  the  theatre,  by  anj^  contrivance,  have  its  strength 
brought  to  bear  directly  on  that  job? 

M.  of  E.  I'm  to  go  to  my  evening's  entertainment 
to  be  more  fully  and  freely  developed,  am  I? 

M.  of  T.  The  evening's  entertainment  will  be  but 
a  small  part  of  the  business.    But  do  you  mind? 

M.  of  E.  Will  the  process  be  decently  concealed 
from  me? 

M.  of  T.  I  will  tell  you  what  best  can  conceal  it. 
A  thorough  education  in  dramatic  art.  By  the  aid  of 
that  you  would  make  the  remarkable  discovery  that 
good  plays  are  better  than  bad,  and  that  there  are 
many  more  sorts  of  good  plays  than  you  imagine.    You 


THE  author's  prejudices  35 

would  find,  also,  that  acting  is  a  very  subtle  and  sensi- 
tive art  which  demands  trained  appreciation.  Plays 
may  not  always  get  the  acting  they  deserve,  but  audi- 
ences mostly  do.  And,  finally,  you  would  find  that  in 
learning  how  to  enjoy  the  theatre  you  had  learned  .  .  . 
But  I  '11  keep  you  talking  no  longer.  I'll  try,  as  you 
say,  to  draft  my  bill,  if  you  've  the  patience  to  read  it. 

M.  of  E.  I  assure  you  I  'm  only  anxious  to  be  con- 
vinced. 

M.  of  T.    Don't  say  that.     We  none  of  us  are  .  .  . 

The  Man  of  the  Theatre  and  the  Minister  of  Educa- 
tion now  part  .  .  .  but  only  for  the  time  being,  it  is 
hoped. 


Chapter  II 
The  Educational  Basis 

THE  schools  of  to-day  are    still   dominated   by 
cheap   printing.      As    an    exact    medium    was 
needed  for  the  study   of  the  exact  sciences  it 
was  inevitable  that  book-learning  should,  as  our  mod- 
ern civilization  advanced,   largely  conquer  the  older 
methods.     But  the  victory  extending  be- 
Book  yond  the  justice  of  the  cause,  there  have 

learning  lately  been  notable  attempts  at  readjust- 

^^      ^     1     ment.    And  if  one  must  write  "still  dom- 
educational      .  ,,,..,  ,  „    ., 

claims  of         mated      it   is   because  tne   rescue   oi   the 

acting  expressional    side    of    education    from    its 

obliteration  by  the  absorptional  is  halted 

by  other  difficulties  than  any  lack  of  conviction  in  the 

individual  teachers  giving  thought  to  the  matter  that 

such  a  salvation  is  urgent. 

The  convenient  notion  that  an  abundance  of  books 
will  take  the  place  of  talent  in  the  teacher,  the  strang- 
ling of  even  the  finest  teaching  talent  in  the  grip  of 
enormous  classes,  the  unavoidable  drawback  that  the 
supply  of  good  teachers  will  never  equal  the  demand, 
are  major  difficulties  enough.  But  what  chiefly  vitiates 
the  employment  of  this  dancing,  singing,  acting,  now 
called,  still  rather  half-heartedly,  from  the  play  hour 
to  the  school  hour,  is  the  lack  of  understanding  of  the 
full  and  proper  use  to  be  made  of  them.  This  is  so, 
at  any  rate,  as  far  as  the  acting  is  concerned;  let  me 
confine  myself  to  that. 

The  educationalist  asks  just  how  seriously  he  is  to 
take  it.  And  he  has  a  right  to  an  answer  before  he  can 
be  expected  to  confirm  it  in  the  place  it  is  —  he  will 
sometimes  impalieiitly  say  —  usurj)ing  in  a  crowded 
curricuhnn.  Drawing  and  music  and  dancing  —  good 
reasons  onoiigli  tan  be  given  for  their  study.     If  the 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  37 

art  of  the  theatre,  of  which  acting  is  the  naturally  first 
grasped  branch,  is  still  viewed  askance,  if  its  claim  to 
consideration  can  only  be  admitted  on  the  ground 
that  some  snatchings  at  it  may  be  a  useful  part  of 
the  good  fun  by  which  the  strain  of  learning  must  be 
relieved  or  by  virtue  of  the  extraneous  opportunity 
they  will  give  for  practising  speech  and  movement  and 
acquiring  self-confidence,  its  advocates  can  hardly  com- 
plain. For,  in  England  at  least,  the  art,  as  a  whole, 
is  neither  studied,  practised,  nor  appreciated  even  by 
its  professional  devotees  with  any  sustained  intelligence. 
As  a  calling  the  art  is  hampered  by  the  conditions  of 
a  trade,  and  a  very  badly  organized  trade  at  that.  Gal- 
lant attempts  have  certainly  been  made, 
of  late  years,  to  improve  the  quality  '^^^  . 
of  the  product.  With  great  public  spirit  f^g^S's^ 
Sir  Herbert  Tree  founded  a  dramatic  contribution 
academy,  which  pretends,  certainly,  to 
no  more  than  the  study  of  acting,  but  now,  under 
the  guidance  of  representative  people,  does,  no  doubt, 
all  it  can  do  for  that.  There  are  other  institutions 
and  many  independent  teachers;  competent,  some  of 
them,  and  most  of  them  enthusiastic.  But,  apart  from 
all  other  drawbacks,  they  work  of  necessity  with  their 
eyes  upon  the  standards  and  demands  of  the  profes- 
sional stage.  Now  the  modern  professional  stage  does 
not  even  ask  for  recruits  deeply  studied  in  the  art  of 
acting  —  it  has  neither  the  time  nor  resource  to  indulge 
itself  in  anything  so  delicately  complex.  And  as  for 
the  cognate  arts,  which  the  theatre  blends  with  its 
own,  of  literature,  music,  or  design,  the  recruit  is  not 
expected  to  be  more  than  conversationally  aware  of 
their  existence.  The  professional  theatre  demands  just 
so  much  of  the  external  craft  of  the  actor  as  will  meas- 
ure up  to  the  critical  discernment  of  its  present  public, 
which  is,  in  its  turn  —  and  therefore  remains  —  rather 
low. 


38  THE   EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

So  it  is  not  to  the  professional  theatre  that  the  edu- 
cationahst  can  be  expected  to  turn  for  advice.  "If 
there's  no  more  in  the  business  than  this,"  he  might 
say,  "what  use  can  it  be  to  boys  and  girls,  except  as 
a  medium  for  lung  exercise  and  a  means  of  uncramp- 
ing  themselves  after  a  long  spell  at  their  desks?" 

And  if  his  use  of  the  drama  is  to  extend  at  all  beyond 
the  kindergarten  and  the  primary  school,  or  if  he  is 
to  give  it  any  other  place  among  the  studies  of  older 
pupils  than  that  of  a  semi-recreational  subject,  he 
must  be  brought  to  consider  it  in  terms  for  which 
acting  and  the  theatre,  as  England  now  knows  them, 
provide  no  interpretation. 

Let  us  first  consider  the  educational  claims  that  are 
already  made  on  the  drama's  behalf  and  place  them  as 
high  as  possible.  They  are  even  then  by  no  means  to 
be  admitted;  and  it  is  ambition  with  its  fine  phrases 
that  is  fatal  to  them.  They  will  still  be  urged,  never- 
theless, with  all  the  insistent  force  of  narrow  enthu- 
siasm. Self-expression,  for  instance,  has  become  a 
catchword ;  development  of  the  individuality  —  where 
parents  afford  the  money  and  teachers  the  time  —  a 
craze;  and  into  this  service  drama  is  dragged  by  the 
heels.  Well,  it  is  very  fit  for  children  of  ten  years  old 
to  be  learning  how  to  move  and  to  speak,  if  that  is 
what  self-expression  and  the  rest  of  the  jargon  means. 
But  it  is  as  ridiculous  to  find  adolescents  and  grown-up 
people  bothering  themselves  with  such  simple  things  as 
it  would  be  to  see  them  conning  the  alphabet. 

The  study  of  manners  is  admittedly  a  very  necessary 

one.     Manners   are   the   lubricant   of   the  democratic 

machinery',  whether  they  be  the  ordinary 

_  good    manners    of    strangers    and    neigh- 

manners  ,  1111  1 

l)()urs  to  eacli  other  when  no  law  compels 

them  to  show  respect,  or  whether  the  more  com- 
plex pro])lom  is  involved  of  expressing  —  and,  as  an 
exasperated    minority,    somcLimcs    suppressing  —  our 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  39 

political  opinions.  As  far  as  personal  good  manners 
are  concerned  one  can  be  done  with  the  mechanism  of 
the  business  very  early.  A  child  soon  masters  the 
essential  rules;  teachers,  by  ranking  manners  as  expres- 
sive at  all,  admit  the  existence  of  something  more  than 
formality,  and  we  commonly  find  it  in  the  individual 
recognition  of  the  "right  thing"  to  do  and  say  at  any 
particular  moment.  To  learn  to  express  that  in  terms 
of  mutual  understanding  should  be  easy  enough.  But 
if  personal  good  manners  —  it's  a  truism  —  are  not 
based  on  consideration  their  foundation  is  brittle  indeed. 
Just  so  with  public  manners.  Self-expression  pro- 
vides but  one  of  their  rudiments,  and  its  physical  side 
is  so  comparatively  uniinportant,  such  a  mere  matter 
of  mechanism,  that  it  is  as  well  to  be  through  with 
one's  study  of  it  before  reaching  an  age  when  such 
things  have  ceased  to  be  wholly  assimilable.  There 
is  nothing  a  man  need  know  of  the  general  physical 
rules  of  public  behaviour,  standing,  moving,  speaking, 
which  can't  be  mastered  by  the  age  of  sixteen  or  seven- 
teen, and  which  can't  better  thereafter  begin,  as  a  rule, 
to  be  forgotten.  Beyond  that  there  is  certainly  the 
expression  of  his  own  mental  individuality  to  be  thought 
of.  But  it  is  better,  on  the  other  hand,  that  this  side 
of  the  training  should  not  be  too  prominently  developed 
just  at  the  age  when  the  ego  begins  to  grow  powerful. 
Concentration  upon  externals  at  this  time  may  result 
in  polite  affectations,  but  attention  to  sheer  5e//-expres- 
sion  will  cultivate  a  brutality  of  egotism,  emotional  and 
spiritual.  And  that  this  may  be  only  the  more  effec- 
tively masked  by  a  nervous,  fragile  exterior  any  mis- 
tress of  a  girls'  school  can  tell  us. 

Not  that  one  need  deny  either  the  ab-  t,,     .     ,... 
,    .  ,  „  ^,  *^   ,  ,  The  tradition 

solute  value  oi  the  externals,  or   that   as   of  our  speech 

an   offset    to   five    or    six   generations  of 

mental    cramming    any    sort    of     expressional    fling 

which    can   be    granted   to    young    people    is   better 


40  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

than  none.  Wlien,  for  instance,  our  language  is  the 
commonest  verbal  currencj^  in  the  world,  what  shame 
to  us  that  it  should  not  be  expressively  used!  Since 
it  has  unsurpassed  traditions  of  beauty  and  eloquence, 
what  a  scandal  if  here,  in  its  home,  we  are  unworthy 
of  them!  Not  but  that  we  have  unavoidably  much  to 
contend  with  on  this  head  in  England.  Of  necessity 
seventeenth-century  English,  the  last  great  mould  into 
which  our  language  was  poured,*  has  been  broken 
into  by  newly-made  phrase  and  word.  The  church  has 
a  weekly  chance  to  keep  the  magnificence  of  the  liturgy 
and  the  authorized  version  of  the  Bible  singing  in  our 
heads.  The  theatre,  no  doubt,  could  and  should  do  us 
a  like  service  with  Shakespeare.  But  language  must 
respond  to  every  change  of  habit.  The  most,  perhaps, 
that  the  past  masters  of  our  tongue  can  do  for  us  is  to 
strengthen  the  bones  and  the  sinews  of  our  speech;  the 
flesh  we  must  ourselves  keep  live  and  healthy  by  the 
cleansing  process  of  renewal.  INIoreover,  it  is  possible 
that  in  the  last  three  hundred  years  some  absolutely 
physiological  change  has  taken  place  in  our  speaking 
of  English.!    How  otherwise  account  for  the  extended 

*  Unless  some  would  evidence  Johnsonese.  But  that  never,  one 
hopes, became  colloquial.  Sheridan's  dialogue  is  delightful,  the  musi- 
cal cadence  of  Miss  Austen's  perfect  of  its  kind,  just  as  Parlia- 
mentary eloquence  of  the  great  period  was  no  doubt  very  fine.  But 
whether  —  certainly  when  faith  or  passion  were  in  question  —  they 
did  more  than  refine  upon,  formalise,  and  weaken  the  seventeenth- 
century  tradition  .  .  .  ?  How(>vcr,  I  am  a  seventeenth-century 
man,  and,  with  the  best  will,  unfuir  to  the  eighteenth.  But  compare 
Walpole's  letters  with  Sir  Henry  ^Votton's,  or  Lady  Mary  Wortley 
Montagu's  with  —  for  a  simple  lady's  —  Lady  Grace  Grenville's. 
Read  the  Verney  correspondence.  In  a  hundred  years  how  much 
colour  and  warmth  has  vanished! 

t  Some  hint  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  rapid  alteration  of 
Cockney.  Compare  Sam  Weller  and  All)ert  Chevalier;  tiie  differ- 
ence is  almost  a  physiological  one.  Tongue,  breath,  teeth,  and 
lips,  that  is  to  say.  must  conspire  cjuite  differently  together  to 
produce  two  such  dialects. 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  41 

rhetoric  of  the  Elizabethan  drama,  its  feasibihty  for 
the  actors,  its  popiihirity  with  the  audience?  Can  one 
see  a  packed  crowd  of  groundHngs  standing  —  be  it 
remembered  —  through  an  uncut  Henry  V  or  Measure 
for  Measure,  unless  the  long  speeches  w^ere  taken  with 
a  Latin  glibness  for  which  we  have  lost,  it  would  seem, 
both  the  mouth  and  the  ear?  Elizabethan  speech, 
among  people  pretending  to  any  culture  at  all,  was 
normally  quick:  a  swifter,  fiercer,  more  full-blooded 
business  than  anything  we  have  the  custom  of  now.  It 
is  disconcerting,  to-day,  to  find  French  actors  sjjeaking 
Shakespeare  more  appropriately  and  effectively  —  for 
all  the  loss  in  translation  —  than  most  English  actors 
do.  But  they  can.  There  is  a  nation  that  takes  un- 
affected pleasure  in  beautiful  words,  beautifully  spoken. 
How  far  we  could  recapture  all  this  delight  it  is  hard 
to  say,  for,  no  doubt,  there  were  other  and  psycholog- 
ical causes  contributory  to  its  loss.  But  pleasure  in 
the  colour  and  music  of  the  verse  we  could  certainly 
have  if  actors  would  trouble  to  give  it  us.  Some  trouble 
on  our  part,  as  well  as  on  theirs,  is  involved,  though. 
If  they  must  learn  how  to  speak  Shakespeare's  verse 
we  must  learn  how  to  listen,  the  effort  being  compara- 
ble and  cognate  to  the  one  we  must  make  to  appre- 
ciate a  method  of  music  three  centuries  old. 

But  for  a  model  of  contemporary  speech  where  are 
w^e  to  look?  We  ought  not  to  have  to  look  in  vain  to 
the  theatre,  even  though  the  material  —  be  it  well 
understood  —  is  not  to  be  found  in  modern  imitations 
of  Elizabethan  drama.  Nor  yet  shall  we  find  it  in 
elaborately  built-up  prose,  taking  the  form  of  drama 
but  belying  its  spirit.  But  what  better  model  can  there 
be  of  perfected  everydaj^  speech  than  the  dialogue  of 
a  modern  play  if,  under  such  conditions  as  a  good 
theatre  should  impose,  it  can  carry  to  the  audience  the 
fullness  of  its  meaning  and  emotion?  Nor  need  we 
rule  out   for   this   use  the   artistic   incidents   of   such 


42  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

streaks  of  dialect  —  the  Mayf air  or  Whitechapel  variety 
—  as  a  play  may  contain.  An  awful  warning  is  some- 
times as  useful  as  an  example. 

One  can  admit  that  the  theatre,  even  as  it  now 
stands,  does  serve  this  purpose  a  little.  So  does  the 
Church.  Some  part  of  the  population  gets  every 
Sunday  a  lesson  in  English.  The  quality  of  the  model 
presented  leaves  in  each  case  no  doubt  much  to  be 
desired.  The  parson's  speech  may  be  flat  and  dead. 
The  actor's  will  be  lively  enough,  though  that  may  be 
its  first  and  last  virtue.  But  neither  calling  is  so  relieved 
from  other  cares  and  charged  with  this  one  as  to  have 
leisure  to  acquire  such  a  thing  as  style.  And  it  is  of 
no  use  whatever  placing  the  responsibility  for  our  in- 
eptitude and  vulgarity  of  speech  upon  school  teachers. 
In  the  first  place  because  the  teachers  themselves  must 
be  taught,  in  the  second  because,  though  the  grounding 
of  a  child  in  the  habit  of  good  speech  is  a  great  thing, 
the  labour  will  be  largely  wasted  if  he  is  to  emerge  into 
an  adult  world  where  he  will  find  no  public  pride  in  the 
accomplishment  nor  any  importance  attached  to  it. 

But  if  difficulties  surround  us  in  Eng- 
.   ®  .  land,  what  about  America's  mountainous 

language  task?  Think  of  the  problem  of  preserv- 
ing a  language  in  its  integrity  when  thirty 
per  cent,  or  so  of  the  children  in  the  schools  come  to 
it  as  to  a  foreign  tongue,  when  to  whole  sections  of 
the  adult  population  it  remains  no  more  a  medium  of 
expression  than  are  the  hundred  words  or  so  of  French, 
German,  Spanish,  or  Italian,  with  which  the  average 
English  or  American  traveller  will  pick  his  way  through 
the  hotels  and  restaurants  of  Europe.  Whether  and 
when  tlie  process  of  the  melting-pot  will  extend  to 
language,  and  what  the  final  residuum  will  be,  is  a 
question  that,  quite  apart  from  its  difficulty,  would 
range  far  beyond  this  present  subject.  That  English 
will  remain  the  language  of  America  we  may  regard  as 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  43 

fairly  certain,  and  it  is  sufficient  for  our  purpose  to 
point  out  that  its  possible  remoulding  rests  ujjon  other 
considerations  than  those  of  literature,  and  of  the  pres- 
ent struggle  for  its  soul  between  the  writer  of  classical 
traditions,  whom  nobody  (comparatively)  reads,  and 
the  journalist  whom  everybody  (absolutely)  reads. 
This  struggle  though  is  in  itself  instructive.  We  note 
the  classicist  out-flanking  the  position  by  getting  at 
the  will-be  journalist  as  he  passes  —  as  almost  all  of 
them  now  do  —  through  college.  But  then,  with  his 
guns  trained,  often  enough  the  classicist  won't  stick 
to  them.  Lest  he  be  thought  dry-as-dust  he  goes 
back  on  Milton  to  encourage  the  solemn  study  of  O. 
Henry  and  George  Ade.  Or  —  worse,  it  is  true!  —  he 
makes  of  his  Milton  and  Addison  and  Pope  a  mump- 
simus  jargon,  reflected,  how  horribly,  in  ceremonial 
documents  and  speeches  launched  from  time  to  time 
at  the  public's  head. 

But  the  immigrant,  though  he  brings  as  a  rule  little 
literary  culture  of  his  own,*  only  partly  abides  by  the 
issue  of  this  battle.     For  he  has  brought, 
let  us  remember,  much  else  that  goes  to    The 
the  making  of  a  spoken  language:  physical    ^ijfluences 
differences  to  begin  with,  differences  in  the    ^^^  ^^ 
emphasis  of  emotion,  long  inherited  con-    recent 
structional  habits  of  thought.    And  mixed    immigration 
with  all  this  will  be  the  yet  uncalculated 
influence   of    climate.     Even    the    approaches,    then, 
to  the  problem   of  the   standardization   of  speech   in 
America  are  complex,  and  the  problem  itself  is  doubt- 
less not  within  a  century  or  so  of  anything  like  a  solu- 
tion.   One  merely  notes  meanwhile,  as  compensations 
for   the   present   inter-racial   disturbance,   that   when 

*  He  sometimes  brings  more  than  might  be  supposed.  I  once 
caught  an  ItaHan  workman,  solitary  under  a  hedge  on  Long  Island, 
reading  poetry  aloud  to  himself.  But  he  probably  went  back  to 
Italy  later,  back  to  where  the  poetry  came  from. 


44  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

Americans  do  take  the  trouble  to  speak  well  —  and 
feeling  this  as  but  one  among  many  threats  to  the 
precious  "Anglo-Saxon"  dominance,  the  old  stock 
among  them  often  do  take  a  great  deal  of  trouble  — 
they  achieve  a  purer,  firmer  English  than  can  commonly 
be  heard  anywhere  else;  except  possibly  in  Ireland, 
where  a  sweetness  in  place  of  firmness  is  added  to  the 
carefully  acquired  purity.*  And  a  second  compensa- 
tion may  be  the  bringing  to  the  language,  by  some,  at 
least,  of  the  foreign  element,  of  a  fire  and  colour  of  ex- 
pression and  a  musical  tone  of  which  native  speakers 
seem  almost  deliberately  to  deprive  it.  Did  the  Yankee 
twang  develop,  by  chance,  from  Puritan  "Psalm-sing- 
ing?" Our  own  seventeenth-century  Puritans  were 
reproached  with  making  just  such  sounds.  But  for 
fear  of  treading  too  debatable  ground  we  might  rather 
say  —  enlarging  our  supposition  as  to  the  present 
difficulties  of  tackling  Shakespearean  English  —  bring 
back  to  America  some  of  the  quality  lost  to  England 
from  the  time  that  our  own  growing  political  insularity 
separated  us  from  the  cultural  influence  of  the  Latin 
tongues.  England  gained  an  integrity  for  its  language 
thereby,  no  doubt.  But  by  mid-seventeenth  century 
had  not  the  full  benefit  of  that  inured,  and  since  then 
does  not  the  history  of  its  speaking  possibly  show,  by 
the  drag-back  of  peasant  influences  on  it,  a  reversion 
to  slower,  slacker,  slovenlier  ways? 

Not  only  in  this  particular  may  America,  without 
taking  thought,  be  more  fortunate  than  we,  who  refuse 
to.  The  foreign  elements,  blended  into  the  American 
nation  of  the  future,  may  inform  it  with  a  much  livelier 
general  expressiveness  than  our  closer  origins  develop. 
Certainly  one  would  say,  even  now,  that  the  American 
is  more  ebullient  than  the  Englishman.  That  may  be, 
again,  the  influence  of  climate:  it  may  spring  from 
the  difforonco  in  social  —  more  properly  in  economic 
*  I  have  found  this  amung  Donegal  peasants. 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  45 

—  conditions,  under  which  self-assertion  is  the  first  step 
to  success,  while  personal  success  must,  of  course,  be 
the  good  citizen's  gospel  in  any  country  pledged  to 
extreme  individualism.  Political  democracy  and  com- 
mercialism are  beginning  to  flavour  our  English  na- 
tional life  to  something  of  the  same  taste.  But  the  self 
thus  expressed,  or  rather  asserted,  is  merely  an  armour, 
offensive  enough  —  sometimes  in  every  sense  —  but 
chiefly  designed  so  that  upon  it  the  blows  of  a  battling 
world  may  rattle:  it  is  hollow,  and  the  real  self  within 
often  a  timid  and  essentially  undeveloped  thing.  One 
appreciates  that  competitive  conditions  have  called  for 
this  weapon,  and  how,  with  our  educationalists  caught 
unprepared,  any  sort  of  expressional  fling  to  counter- 
act the  constrictive  influence  of  the  hard  grinding  of 
facts,  and  yet  more  facts,  into  a  few  generations  of 
youthful  skulls  —  far  more  deadening  work  than  the 
gerund-grinding  of  old  —  is  indulged  and  encouraged 
in  preference  to  none. 

But  as  self-expression  —  even  if  that  alone  be  what 
we  are  after  —  does  this  stoking  of  the  emotional  ego 
and  its  blowing  of  steam  suffice.''  And  are  we  after 
that  alone.'* 

Those  of  us  who  are  aesthetically  inclined  admit, 
and  should  even  in  opposition  insist  upon,  the  impor- 
tance of  these  externals.  This  would  be  a  much  more 
attractive  country  to  live  in  if  all  its  inhabitants  spoke 
perfectly  and  moved  beautifully,  and  on  public  occa- 
sions could  express  themselves  with  force  and  distinc- 
tion. And  possibly  our  countrymen  would  cut  a  better 
figure  abroad  if  they  cut  a  more  beautifully  expressive 
one.  Not  the  picked  ambassadors  of  statecraft  or 
learning,  who  doubtless  do  express  most  suitably  what 
they  —  if  not,  alas,  what  all  of  us  —  are;  but  the 
ordinary  traveller  in  commerce  or  pleasure,  for  he  is 
also,  be  it  remembered,  his  country's  ambassador. 

But  we  must  finally  recognize  that  Handsome  does 


46  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

only  as  Handsome  is.     And  we  have  serious  cause  of 

quarrel   with   those  for  whom   self-expression  is  only 

self-assertion;  with  no  question  of  the  sort 

The  drama      Qf  ggjf     Yot  surely  this,  even  aesthetically, 

^^.^  is    just    what    does    most    matter.      And 

microcosm       «      ,  •      i       ^-.i        i  -11^1 

of  society        lurtner,  as  m  the  Church,  so  m  all  other 

society,  we  being  members  one  of  another, 
expression  of  the  single  self  is  inadequate.  If  it  were 
enough  there  would  be  nothing  for  the  dramatic  or  any 
other  art  to  do  in  education  at  all.  For  does  not  all 
art  release  us  from  egotism.'*  Let  us  examine  very 
critically  any  artistry  that  can  be  taken  as  the  text  of 
a  denial  of  this:  it  will,  of  a  certainty,  have  lodged  in 
some  perversion  of  its  true  purpose.  The  art  of  the 
drama,  viewed  in  completeness,  is  anti-egotist  to  the 
last  degree.  It  is  so  in  spite  of  the  study  of  its  simpler 
constituents  being  self-developing  merely,  and  of  its 
professional  practice  seeming  too  often  to  induce  vanity, 
affectation,  or  self -consciousness  —  though  these,  it 
may  be  forgotten,  are  egotism's  least  deadly  aspects. 
Dramatic  art,  fully  developed  in  the  form  of  the 
acted  play,  is  the  working  out  —  in  terms  of  make- 
believe,  no  doubt,  and  patchily,  biasedly,  with  much 
over-emphasis  and  suppression,  but  still  in  the  veri- 
table human  medium  —  not  of  the  self-realization  of 
the  individual,  but  of  society  itself.  A  play  is  a  pic- 
tured struggle  and  reconciliation  of  human  wills  and 
ideas;  internecine,  with  destiny  or  with  circumstance. 
The  struggle  must  be  there,  and  either  the  reconcili- 
ation or  the  tragedy  of  its  failure.  And  it  is  generally 
in  the  development  of  character,  by  clash  and  by 
mutual  adjustment,  that  the  determinant  to  the  strug- 
gle is  found.  What  livelier  microcosm  of  human  society, 
therefore,  can  there  be  than  an  acted  play.^  Aj)olog- 
ically  one  could  push  the  likeness  further.  To  bring  a 
play  to  its  acting  is  to  discover  the  following  simple 
law  of  its  comi)leted  well-being.     If  each  character  in 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  47 

it,  even  the  smallest,  is  not  developed  to  its  fullest 
capacity  the  production  will  be  impoverished  beyond 
any  hope  of  salvation  by  brilliant  individual  perform- 
ances.    And   yet   if   every   actor  —  the   most   or   the 
least  important  —  does  not  play  his  part  with  a  pri- 
mary loyalty  to  the  whole  play  and  a  strict  consider- 
ation for  his  fellows  artistic  failure  is  as  inevitable. 
Interpretation  of  the  para^ble  is  needless.    To  the  ser- 
vice of  such  an  art,  then,  one  must  bring  far  more  than 
a  crude  power  of  self-expression;  and  equally  from  its 
study  we  may  claim  that  much  else  is  to  be  gained. 
But  it  may  be  instructive  first  to  probe  for  the  be- 
ginning of  the  simply  self-expressive  power.    Watch  a 
child  seeking   it.     Before  he  can  express 
himself  he  has  actually,  one  may  say,  to      j-gaUzation 
create  the   conscious   self  that  he   would      ^f  ^  ^.j^jj^j 
express.     Now   his  way   of  doing  this  is 
the   paradoxical  one  of   pretending  to   be  somebody 
else.    Children  begin  to  act  as  soon  as  they  are  free  of 
their  cradles;  their  kicking  and  gurgling  within  them 
may   well   have   a   dramatic   intention.      Throughout 
nursery  time  it  is  games  of  make-believe  that  are  the 
most  popular.    The  child  is  peopling  the  world  of  him- 
self.    By  imitation,  by  adaptation,  he  adds  one  by 
one  to  the  list  of  its  characters,   appropriating  and 
assimilating  them  by  identifying  himself  with  each.    By 
a  long  process  of  trial  and  error,  and  later  by  selection 
and  by  refinement,  from  out  of  this  crude  amalgam  of 
his  imagination's  experience  the  conscious  self  is  formed. 
And  the  games  go  on  till  a  supervening  self-conscious- 
ness  shames   him   from   their   public   playing.     Even 
then  they  go  on  in  secret:   he  has  learned  by  this  time 
to  play  them  in  this  subtler  way,  just  as  one  learns  to 
read  without  muttering  the  words.    It  is  doubtful,  in- 
deed, whether,  with  many  people,  the  great  game  of 
make-believe  ever  stops.    It  is  doubtless  but  a  pseudo- 
self  that  he  brings  into  being,  and  later  he  will  slough 


48  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

it  off,  perhaps.  But  this  is  apparently  the  primary 
and  practical  way  by  which  a  child  establishes  connec- 
tion with  the  outer,  developed  world.  It  stands  for 
him  as  a  medium  of  interpretation,  this  bound-up  col- 
lection of  characters  simple  and  fantastic  —  father  and 
mother  and  pirate  king.  It  is  a  various-noted  voice,  by 
listening  to  which  he  himself  learns  to  speak.  It  is  the 
glass  in  which,  seeing  something  he  may  still  call  him- 
self, he  begins  by  comparison  to  see  what  other  people 
are.  It  is  the  dictionary  that  he  looks  into  for  the 
meaning  of  the  strange  things  he  hears.  It  is,  indeed, 
his  first  effort  in  education. 

But  does  a  genuine  self  necessarily  grow  up  within 
this  false  skin?  For  an  answer  one  might  ask  again 
how  genuine  a  self  must  be?  Original  it  cannot  be. 
There  is  no  fresh  creation.  And  how  great  is  the  differ- 
ence between  borrowing  spiritual  qualities  from  one's 
ancestors,  as  one  borrows  their  physical  traits,  and 
acquiring  them  by  a  conscious  effort  of  imagination 
from  the  general  store  of  the  world?  It  is  true  enough 
that  to  play  nothing  but  the  game  of  make-believe  all 
one's  life  is  to  remain  puerilely  inefiFective.  But  that 
is  not  to  say  that  the  child's  method,  become  acceptedly 
self-conscious,  the  historical  and  critical  sense  brought 
also  into  play  with  it,  is  incapable  of  development  to 
a  wider  and  more  serious  use. 

What  are  the  obligations  that  dawn  upon  the  adoles- 
cent? As  we  have  seen,  not  merely  to  develop  himself 
as  an  individual,  but,  concurrently  now,  to  adapt  him- 
self as  a  member  of  society.  And  into  what,  by  a  paral- 
lel process  through  the  ages,  have  generations  of  artists 
turned  that  make-believe  game  of  the  child  but  the 
complex,  co-operative  art  of  the  drama,  this  epitome, 
as  lively  as  art  can  contrive,  of  society  itself?  Self- 
expression  therefore  need  be  by  no  means  the  end  of 
its  educational  use  to  us;  for  even  the  beginning  — 
though  we  practise  it  almost  as  simply  as  the  child 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  49 

plays  his  game  —  involves  recognition  that  the  self,  if 
it  is  to  be  intelligibly  expressive  at  all,  must  reflect 
and  interpret,  as  well  as  express  and  assert.  Study  of 
the  drama,  indeed,  should  properly  begin  for  the  adoles- 
cent not  from  the  self-expressive,  but  from  the  exactly 
opposite  standpoint.  Let  the  boy  or  girl  —  and  the 
man  or  woman  for  that  matter  —  continue  by  all  means 
their  exercises  in  expressing  and  asserting  themselves. 
It  is  as  useful  to  ensure  such  a  suppleness  as  to  keep 
up  our  golf  or  our  tennis.  But  from  the  study  of 
drama  we  are  to  demand  much  else  and  much  more. 
How  is  psychology  taught  nowadays.'*  The  subject 
is  admitted,  apparently,  under  one  guise  or  another, 
and  at  some  remove,  into  up-to-date  cur- 
ricula. One  hears  of  laboratories  —  dread  ^^^ 
word!  —  containing  instruments  by  which  eac  ing  o 
the  sense  of  taste,  smell,  hearing  (in- 
cluding, one  trusts,  the  sense  of  humour,  which 
should  surely  occasionally  abound  among  the  victims 
of  this  spiritual  vivisection)  can  be  meticulously  meas- 
ured. In  all  earnestness  they  are,  no  doubt,  wonderful 
places;  but  the  despised  artist  must  be  forgiven  if  he 
takes  a  small  chance  to  poke  fun  at  the  deified  man  of 
science.  If,  however,  the  teaching  in  schools,  and  the 
training  of  children  generally,  with  its  undoubted  de- 
mand for  what  one  must  dare  to  call  the  common 
sense  of  psychology,  are  to  depend  upon  the  degree 
of  understanding  of  these  frigid  complexities  that  can 
be  gained  by  the  casual  student,  then  the  joke  has  an- 
other aspect  and  becomes,  indeed,  a  poor  one.  As  well 
regulate  one's  daily  life  by  a  text-book  of  algebraic  for- 
mulae. And  small  wonder  if  hard-headed  authorities 
call  out  "Away  with  such  nonsense";  though  a  smaller 
wonder,  alas,  if  they  cling  to  it  just  because  it  all  does 
sound  so  scientific,  and  is  so  very  difficult  to  under- 
stand. But  does  not  the  essence  of  such  psychology 
as  we  average  human  beings  need  dwell  more  accessibly 


50  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

in  a  good  play  or  novel  than  in  any  amount  of  parroted 
repetition  (for  that,  half  the  time,  is  what  it  comes  to) 
of  scientific  terminology?  Would  not  the  scientists 
therefore  be  wise  to  consider  what  use  can  be  made  of 
the  interpretative  arts  as  the  channel  for  whatever 
practical  teaching  they  think  can  be  found  upon  their 
researches?  One  hesitates,  of  course,  to  suggest  them 
as  aid  to  the  researches  themselves. 

But,  the  plain  man  may  ask,  need  psychology  be 
taught?  If  we  could  make  a  vital  study  of  it  —  above 
all,  perhaps,  if  we  could  get  rid  of  the  name  —  the 
answer,  surely,  is  that  there  could  be  few  more  impor- 
tant for  the  making  of  good  citizens.  Democracy  will 
not  continue  to  exist  upon  the  mere  basis  of  the  ballot- 
box;  so  both  its  ill-wishers  and  its  well-wishers  predict. 
Unless  the  men  and  women  of  the  self-governing  nations 
can  learn  a  little  more  of  the  art  of  self-government 
than  resides  in  the  making  of  a  cross  now^  and  then  (the 
one-time  symbol  of  their  illiteracy!)  against  the  name 
of  the  demagogue,  who,  upon  the  platform  or  in  the 
press,  will  descend  to  the  lowest  level  of  political  inde- 
cency to  cajole  it  from  them  then  the  system  is  right- 
eously doomed,  rotten  before  it  is  ripe.  The  key  to 
self-government,  surely  —  to  its  very  beginning  —  is 
self -understanding,  which  again  must  mean,  in  terms 
of  a  commimity,  mutual  understanding.  Have  we  no 
use,  then,  for  psychology,  or  —  to  find  the  simpler 
sounding  term  —  the  knowledge  of  our  souls? 

The  need  for  such  high-sounding  lore 
Democracy,  in  everyday  matters  may  not  at  first 
the  news-  appear.  But,  however  we  limit  our  un- 
^pers,  an  derstanding  of  democracy  to  its  being 
art  of  government  merely  by  the  consent  of  the 

fiction  governed,  we  yet  do  find  ourselves  mak- 

ing pretty  constantly  all  sorts  of  would-be 
knowledgeable  decisions,  though  we  lack  the  concrete 
knowledge  that  is  needed  to  make  them,  and  always 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  51 

must.  Read  through  a  week's  newspapers  and  note  the 
things  that  are  being  done  —  if  one  is  a  British  sub- 
ject, being  done  all  over  the  world  —  in  one's  name. 
We  have  necessarily  delegated  the  doing;  but  wherever 
a  point  of  principle  is  involved,  or  a  precedent  is  cre- 
ated, the  responsibility  will  return  upon  us.  For  this 
we  prepare  ourselves  by  currently  approving  and  con- 
demning. When  we  cease  to  do  either,  or  when  we  con- 
tinue for  long  to  do  nothing  but  approve,  we  are  on 
the  way  to  a  moral  abdication  of  our  power.  It  is  idle 
to  protest  that  we  will  abide  by  fixed  principles  of  right 
or  wrong,  or  by  the  isms  of  a  party  creed.  We  need  to 
interpret  these  in  the  terms  of  each  difficulty's  solution 
as  much  as  do  the  mandatories  of  our  will;  though, 
truly,  we  have  but  to  be  wise  after  the  events,  and  that 
is  sometimes  just  a  little  easier.  The  task,  however, 
seems  beyond  us,  and  the  newspaper  comes  to  our 
assistance.  It  not  only  tells  us  what,  but  why  and 
wherefore  besides.  It  will  conjugate  for  us  the  entire 
verb  of  any  possible  occurrence.  We  have  but  to  define 
our  principles  and  the  paper  that  owes  allegiance  to 
them  will  do  all  the  rest.  Or  if  we  prefer  we  may  first 
choose  our  newspaper  and  then  abide  by  its  opinions 
whatever  they  turn  out  to  be.  This  is  easier  for  us,  and 
for  the  newspaper,  too,  which  can  then  render  current 
history  more  pleasing  by  reversing  the  former  process 
(all  psychological  processes  are  apparently  capable  of 
reversal)  and  bringing  principles  into  accord  with  our 
vicarious  successes  of  policy. 

But  some  people  see  almost  a  moral  danger  here. 
They  would  prefer  that  a  newspaper  should  present 
the  uncoloured  facts  alone.  That  sounds  excellent.  It 
seems  to  betoken  unbending  integrity.  But  how  pro- 
cure an  uncoloured  version  of  any  fact,  and  should  we 
be  better  off  even  then.?  That  Mrs.  Jones  died  at  eleven 
last  night  is  bare  fact,  and  may  need  no  comment;  the 
cause  of  her  death  —  should  it  matter  —  may  always 


52  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

be  a  point  of  opinion.  To  say  that  there  is  a  boiler- 
makers'  strike  in  Northumberland  or  a  rising  amongst 
the  Mahsuds  sounds  informative :  but  is  it?  The  aver- 
age man  asks  for  explanation,  and  into  that  bias  inev- 
itably creeps,  A  factual  education,  which  would  enable 
one  to  cope  explanatorily  and  opinionatively  with  the 
happenings  of  the  British  Empire,  would  involve  some- 
thing very  like  learning  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica 
by  heart,  would  be  about  as  practicable  and  about  as 
educative. 

If  then  we  are  not  to  believe  all  we  are  told  and  yet 
have  only  what  we  are  told  to  rely  on,  is  there  a  way 

out   of   the   dilemma  .f^     This   same  news- 

Qualifica-        paper,    perhaps,    does,    though    somewhat 

tions  and         confusedly,  point  us  to  it.    For  the  modern 

fTh  ^  *°^^     newspaper  interprets  its  news.     Confused 

journalist        ^^^    inappropriate    the    method    as    now 

practised  undoubtedly  is;  for  who,  reading 
with  an  innocent  mind  an  account  of  any  matter 
"by  our  special  correspondent,"  is  to  say  where  the 
plain  tale  of  facts  ends  and  their  interpretation  begins, 
and  how  much  special  pleading  does  not  cover  it  all? 
The  involved  falsity  is  neatly  given  away  in  the  office 
slang,  which  calls  every  recounting  of  news  "a  story." 
But  if  the  medium  were  properly  dissected  and  honestly 
used  falsity  need  not  invalidate  it.  There  is  a  science 
of  plain  statement;  but  interpretation  and  persuasion 
are  arts,  and  no  intrusion  of  the  one  method  on  the 
other  should  ever  be  countenanced.  Narrative  will 
necessarily  thread  and  rethread  the  border  line.  The 
skill  of  it  will  lie  in  never  travelling  over  either  ter- 
ritory upon  false  pretences.  Now  it  should  be  quite 
feasible  —  and  it  is  the  obvious  duty  of  a  newsj)apcr — to 
differentiate  sharply  between  its  use  of  the  three  forms. 
And  il  should  be  quite  possible  for  us  to  discover,  by 
the  light  of  our  own  critical  faculty,  when  any  one  of 
them  —  if  it  is  being  straightforwardly  used  —  is  being 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  53 

grossly  misused.  With  the  pitching  of  a  too  tall  story 
we  readily  reject  its  offences  to  our  common  sense,  even 
too  readily  sometimes  —  but  we  prefer  to  err  in  safety, 
keeping  our  most  precious  possession  unsullied.  And 
overdone  advocacy  will  often  defeat  its  own  ends  with 
us.  But  by  the  fictional  form  we  are  too  apt  to  be 
hypnotized  and  hopelessly  undone. 

What  is  our  remedy  .^^  Useless  to  demand  that  the 
fictional  form  shall  not  be  used  in  such  circumstances. 
The  method  combines  too  many  attractions  for  writer 
and  reader  both,  and  apart  from  attractiveness  it  is 
in  many  cases  the  only  practicable  way  of  conveying 
news.  It  exemplifies  indeed,  in  another  aspect,  the 
democratic  principle  of  representation.  "Our  corre- 
spondent" at  Washington  or  Tokio,  "our  special  cor- 
respondent" sent  to  report  upon  a  conference,  a  strike 
or  a  prize-fight,  is  required  not  to  speak  on  our  behalf, 
but  to  listen,  observe,  and  interpret,  and  that  he  may 
do  so  in  full  measure  we  accord  him  just  that  individual 
freedom  that  is  claimed  in  a  parliament.  His  task 
demands  honesty  of  purpose,  self-criticism,  selective 
judgment  and  great  executive  skill.  There  are  times 
when  bare  statement  is  the  only  effective  thing,  times 
when  sheer  advocacy  based  on  accepted  fact  is  all  that 
is  needed,  and  these  paths  are  at  least  plain.  But  the 
knowledge  which  sifts  truth  from  untruth,  the  imagi- 
nation which  can  vivify  without  falsifying  a  narrative, 
the  tact  which  can  weave  happening,  impression,  and 
opinion  without  confusion,  the  ability,  moreover,  to 
evolve  with  some  swiftness  from  the  process  a  readable 
piece  of  copy  —  such  are  the  qualities  currently  de- 
manded of  the  responsible  journalist  to-day.  Equally 
useless  to  expect  that  he  will  cultivate  them  without 
our  critical  assistance.  We  cannot  apply  the  spur  of  it 
directly,  perhaps;  though  at  one  remove  the  editor, 
keeping  a  watch  on  his  circulation,  will  be  keen  enough 
to  note  our  distaste  for  his  stunts  if  it  checks  the  flow 


54  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

of  our  pennies.  But  the  indirect  method,  though  a 
slower,  is  a  better  one,  by  which  we  educate  ourselves 
in  an  appreciative  understanding  of  this  art  at  its  best 
and  towards  its  worst  aspect  need  only  cultivate  in 
ourselves  the  crass  ability  not  to  be  taken  in  by  a  pack 
of  lies.  We  are  at  the  mercy  of  interpreters  to-day,  be 
they  statesmen  or  journalists,  speaking  for  us  or  to  us. 
We  must  at  all  costs  get  a  hold  over  them.  By  the 
stretch  of  our  own  knowledge  we  cannot  out-compass 
them,  neither  can  we  neglect  the  service  they  render 
us,  with  honest  intentions  as  a  rule,  though  its  quality 
be  poor.  But  their  inevitable  choice  of  an  artistic 
medium  of  advocacy  and  communication  does  provide 
us,  in  our  turn,  with  a  touchstone  by  which  we  can 
test  the  worth  of  what  they  say  and  do  and  are.  For 
art  is  of  universal  heritage.  It  will  not  be  an  instru- 
ment of  superhuman  perfection  that  we  can  fashion,  of 
course,  but  we  can  make  it  quite  effective  enough  to 
defeat  the  demagogue  and  the  yellow  journalist,  or 
at  the  very  least  to  set  them  such  high  standards  of  the 
cajolery  and  deception  necessary  to  defeat  it  as  will 
compel  them  to  be  much  abler  practitioners  of  their 
craft  than  they  are  at  present.  Now  ability  may  not 
connote  virtue,  but  it  is  the  possessor  of  the  one  that 
is  most  often  shamed  into  a  wish  to  acquire  the  other: 
to  what  else  should  he  devote  his  surplus  energy? 
Criticism  is  stimulus.  Most  men  would  rather  be  good 
than  be  found  out. 

How  is  this  faculty  of  discernment  to  be  educated 
in  a  man?  We  must  remenibor  that  with  each  one 
of  us  there  are  for  practical  purposes  two  sorts  of 
truth,  upon  which  we  set  very  different  values.  For 
each  one  of  us  the  boundaries  differ;  we 
"^^^    ,  shift    tlieni    for   ourselves    from    time    to 

self-defence    *""^''    ^"^   ^^^^   ^^^^  average  niau  that  the 

river    Volga    falls    into     the    Black    Sea. 

lie  may,  upon  general  grounds,  be  slightly  annoyed 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  55 

with  you  later  when  he  finds  out  that  it  does  n't, 
rather  more  so  if  you've  led  him  to  make  a  particular 
fool  of  himself  on  the  point.  But  he  does  n't,  as  we 
say,  take  it  to  heart:  if  he  thinks  you  misled  him  for 
no  ill-purpose  he  counts  your  sin  against  accuracy 
venial.  Tell  him,  however,  that  his  wife  no  longer 
loves  him,  that  his  child  is  dying,  or  his  country  in 
danger,  and  he  behaves  very  differently  indeed.  You 
have  attacked,  probably,  a  vital  interest,  and  before 
he  takes  action,  before  even  he  can  bring  himself  to 
believe  or  disbelieve  you,  he  will  sound  all  the  appro- 
priate emotions  of  which  he  is  capable,  will  try  to  bring 
all  his  past  experience  in  such  matters  to  bear,  will 
colour  the  evidence  presented  with  one  coat  after  an- 
other of  suspicion  or  prejudice.  He  will  go  behind  the 
actual  evidence,  moreover,  and  colour  with  feelings  of 
like  or  dislike  the  personal  character  of  everyone  con- 
cerned —  especially  your  character.  And,  finally,  if  his 
capacity  for  genuine  emotion  and  direct  thought  last 
out,  if  he  have  not  taken  refuge  in  the  formulae  of  either, 
when  he  comes  to  a  decision  he  will  make  it,  not  in 
recognition  of  the  truth  as  it  appears  to  you  or  the  rest 
of  the  world  (that  will  be  an  empty  formula),  but  in 
the  strength  of  his  own  innermost  conviction  of  it. 

This  is  the  only  basis  on  which,  in  a  matter  touch- 
ing him  closely,  he  will  dare  proceed  to  action.*  This 
truth  is  not  accuracy,  but  something  fuller  if  less  pre- 
cise. Let  us  remark  that  to  reach  this  conviction  a 
man  goes  through  all  the  essential  processes  of  con- 
structing a  work  of  art.  And,  by  such  means,  in  the 
light  of  consequences  and  if  he  have  any  power  of  self- 
criticism,  he  educates  himself  in  perception. 

It  does  not  follow,  of  course,  that  men,  taking  action 

*  We  are  always  asking  "Can  you  convince  me?"  "I  know 
nothing  of  the  facts,  of  course, but  the  man  himself  does  n't  convince 
me"  is  a  frequent  phrase.  "That  story  does  n't  carry  conviction" 
says  the  magistrate  .  .  .  which  generally  implies  that  it  will. 


56  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

on  such  grounds,  will  do  strict  justice  to  themselves  or 
to  others,  but  where  their  affections  are  concerned  what 
other  course  can  they  pursue  and  hope  to  sustain? 
They  may  apprehend  conduct  abstractly  finer,  but  how 
commit  themselves  to  it?  For  to  take  any  action  of 
personal  consequence  unsanctioned  by  the  full  exercise 
of  one's  own  thoughts  and  feelings  is  to  abrogate  one's 
responsible  humanity.  At  the  worst,  self-betrayal  is 
the  only  tolerable  sort. 

The  next  step  in  perception  will  be  the 
artistic  discovery  that  these  processes  of  thought 

synthesis  ^^^  feeling,  alike  in  their  genuineness 
and  in  their  tendency  to  take  refuge  in 
formulae,  differ  very  little  as  between  man  and  man. 
The  difference,  that  is  to  say,  will  be  of  intensity  (for 
men  are  robust,  febrile,  or  weak  emotionally  as  physi- 
cally) or  of  scope  (self-precipiency  has  come  less  easily 
to  some  than  to  others).  But  if  Smith  has  developed 
any  genuine  feelings  at  all  over  the  death  of  his  only 
son  he  may  be  pretty  sure  that  Brown's,  on  the  like 
occasion,  were  much  the  same;  and  it  goes  without  say- 
ing that  their  formulae  of  expression  will  have  differed 
very  little.  If  Smith  goes  into  battle  himself  the  chances 
are  his  sensations  do  not  differ  essentially  from  those  of 
the  man  next  him.  Young  people  and  continuingly 
self-centred  natures  are  not  over  ready  to  recognize 
this.  It  seems  to  derogate  from  their  perfect  individu- 
ality. But  this  illusion  is  worth  losing,  they  discover, 
for  the  gain  of  a  power  to  apply  an  inward  test  of  the 
truth  of  any  tale  of  battle  or  bereavement  that  is  told 
them. 

But,  granted  the  wish  to  tell  a  tale  honestly,  does 
genuineness  of  feeling  promote  accuracy  of  ol>servation 
to  begin  with?  Not  of  itself;  but  inferentially  yes, 
more  often  than  not.  To  be  trying  to  tell,  if  not  the 
whole  truth  about  one's  feelings,  yet  nothing  but  the 
truth   involves   such   a   ruthless   discipline   as   cannot 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  57 

easily  be  broken  minute  by  minute  for  the  sake  of  a 
conscious  manipulation  of  facts.  Here,  however,  the 
question  of  education  assumes  importance.  For  the 
third  step  in  perception  is  the  discovery  that,  apart 
from  their  subject,  the  processes  of  thought  and  feehng 
l)y  which  men  achieve  conviction  are  so  akin  as  to  be 
deducible  one  from  another,  recognized  in  strange  dress, 
and,  to  a  degree,  imagined  without  experience.  It  is 
quite  possible  to  acquire  enough  general  knowledge  of 
the  working  of  interpretative  consciousness  to  be  able 
to  apply  test  after  test  of  the  genuineness  —  and  thus 
inferentially  of  the  objective  truth  —  of  a  story  every 
circumstance  of  which  may  be  unfamiliar.  It  will  not 
be  a  scientific  test,  of  course;  questions  of  science 
should  not  be  brought  within  the  scope  of  such  a 
method.  But  we  need  not  complain  of  its  subjection 
to  human  fallibility,  as  it  is  to  the  scientifically  incal- 
culable stuff  of  humanity  that  the  method  is  applied. 
We  must  take  it  for  what  we  are  worth.  Instruments 
of  an  indiscriminating  and  soulless  accuracy  we  can- 
not make  ourselves;  vehicles  of  a  selective  truth  we 
can.  Truth  may  here  be  a  misnomer.  Philosophers, 
severely  contemplating  the  absolute,  will  condemn  such 
a  use  of  the  precious  word,  but  we  need  one  that  will 
stand  for  the  utmost  attainable. 

And  where  shall  we  turn  for  its  exemplifying  if  not 
to  the  great  artists  in  life's  interpretation  and  the 
critics  who  set  them  their  standard.'*  An  artist  will  in 
this  sense  be  a  truth-teller  and  a  truth-maker:  that  is  if 
he  is  to  picture  men  anew  to  themselves  he  must  have 
a  keener  observation  and  a  nicer  sense  of  selection  than 
commonly  serves.  Though  he  deals  with  mimic  cir- 
cumstances, they  will  not  be  of  necessity  less  actual  to 
us  than  any  others  outside  our  experience.  For  his 
characters  to  carry  conviction  he  must  first  have  con- 
vinced himself  of  the  truth  of  them,  which  will  range 
between  the  extent  of  his  vision  and  the  limits  of  his 


58  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

expressional  power.  We  may  hold  that  under  con- 
ditions of  his  sole  choosing  an  able  man  can  bamboozle 
us  sadly,  and  certainly  the  power  of  an  artist  to  impose 
fiction  as  fact  is  great.  Defoe  specialized  in  doing  so. 
It  was  said  laughingly  of  Balzac  that  his  Paris  came  out 
of  his  head,  and  Parisians  had  to  set  to  work  imitating 
it.  But  this  does  not  invalidate  its  educative  work  to 
us.  Robinson  Crusoe  and  Pere  Goriot  are  true  in  our 
present  sense  of  the  word.  For  the  artist  cannot  play 
us  false  against  our  will.  The  medium  he  must  work 
in  —  be  it  colour,  form,  music,  or  words  —  can  be 
only  an  extension  and  refinement  of  some  natural 
power  of  our  own.  We  are  fellow  craftsmen  all,  and 
artists  willy-nilly,  every  one  of  us.  And  the  better  prac- 
tised we  are  the  further  can  we  range  with  the  master- 
craftsman  both  appreciatively  and  questioningly,  too. 
It  is  indeed  as  much  our  business  to  make  common 
cause  with  the  critic,  who,  approaching  receptively 
what  the  artist  has  dealt  with  expressively,  matches 
him  at  the  game. 

Now  all  this  might  seem  unimportant  enough,  no 
doubt,  if  the  fictional  form,  the  fictional  method,  were 
not  in  multifarious  use  beyond  the  bounds  of  make- 
believe.  Of  such  a  method  of  conducting  human  affairs 
we  may  approve  or  disapprove,  but  social  history  has 
always  been  deep-dyed  in  it,  and  the  elaborate  mech- 
anism of  intercourse  which  belongs  to  modern  life  has 
tended  to  increase  its  sway.  One  of  the  great  problems 
of  democratic-imperial  government  is  the  bringing 
"home"  to  the  uninslructed  mind  of  strange  fact  and 
distant  folk.  The  lively,  simple,  immemorial  means  of 
personal  story  telling  cannot  be  neglected.  Why,  how 
the  even  simj)ler  art  of  ])icture-making  —  now  that  the 
cinema  has  given  it  fresh  attraction  —  is  being  pressed 
into  the  service  of  such  educalion;  and  l)y  quite  serious 
people,  too.  Things,  it  is  true,  are  brought  within  the 
scope  of  these  easier  methods  that  never  should  be. 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  59 

Upon  questions  of  pure  science  we  should  not  have  to 
be  warned  to  allow  for  picturesque  statement  and  the 
personal  equation.  But  in  general  it  seems  inevitable 
that  the  further  we  move  from  strictly  measurable 
matters  towards  the  contests  of  which  our  still  incal- 
culable humanity  is  itself  the  field  this  will  be  the 
game  to  be  played.  Therefore  we  may  as  well  learn  to 
play  it  intelligently. 

To  the  mass  of  people  this  power  and     The 
opportunity  is  recognizable  enough  in  such      popular 
a  directly  interpretative  art  as  story-writ-      .         ,    . 
ing,  if  one  may  judge  by  the  fascinated     terpretative 
credulous    respect    they   show  —  mingled,      art 
no  doubt,  with  a  little  distrust,  as  such 
respect  is  apt  to  be  —  for  its  accredited  practitioners. 
To    simple    souls    the    novelist    wears    something   of 
the    aspect   of    a  tribal   magician;  and  "Jones   write 
a  play!    Nonsense,  I  knew  his  father,"   has  its   roots 
in    the   wonder    at    an    almost    supernatural   achieve- 
ment.    So    many    of    us    carry    the    weight    of    that 
uncultured  self-consciousness  which  is  affliction  rather 
than  gift.    This  can  account,  if  nothing  else  will,  for  the 
morbid  attraction  and  repulsion  which  the  theatre  exer- 
cises.    The  horror  with  which  actors  were  wont  to  be 
regarded  had  a  spice  of  awe.    There  is,  in  fact,  general 
recognition  that  the  artist  wields  a  dangerous  power. 

The  staying,  if  not  the  satisfaction,  of  the  appetite 
for  fictional  art  is  nowadays  mostly  sought  in  the 
novel;  indeed,  the  very  word  "fiction"  has  been  appro- 
priated to  its  use.  The  form  has  obvious  convenience 
for  leisure  moments;  *  it  makes,  as  a  rule,  little  demand 
upon  critical  attention,  calls  for  little  pre-knowledge 

*  Train  journeys,  morning  and  evening,  and  the  better  lighting 
of  railway  carriages,  are  probably  responsible  for  two  thirds  of  the 
circulation  of  "fiction,"  whether  bound  in  cloth,  in  magazine  covers, 
or  masquerading  in  newspapers  wliich  could  not  (or  think  they 
could  not)  get  their  news  read  in  any  less  appetising  form. 


60  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

of  a  subject,  and,  most  importantly,  the  reader  may 
enjoy  his  roused  emotion  in  privacy,  a  boon  indeed, 
though  a  false  one,  to  the  shy  and  inexpressive  soul. 
But  there  is  more  in  it,  perhaps,  than  this;  more  even 
than  a  positive  desire  to  escape  for  an  hour  into  a  world 
of  added  values  and  wider  sanctions.    There  is  dormant 
in  nearly  every  one  of  us  the  ambition  to  share  this 
power  that  can  so  transmute  the  common  things  of 
life.     Fiction  does  not  so  often  raise  it  to  the  point  of 
emulation,  for  the  habit  of  writing  is  new  enough  to  be 
still  a  severe  strain  to  most  people.     But  see  how  the 
older,  directer  art  of  the  theatre  seizes  upon  anyone 
who  is  not  steeled  against  its  influence.     It  may  be 
only  a  childish,  foolish  longing  to  show  off,  but  who  has 
not  "seen  themselves"  upon  the  stage,  or  if  one  is  phys- 
ically fitter  for  Falstaff  than  Romeo,  or  more  positive 
than  reflexive,  upon  the  platform  at  least?     Even  so, 
however,  the  ambition  may  still  not  push  people  be- 
yond the  confines  of  their  secret  mind.    It  is  within  it 
they  are  content  to  exercise  the  unforgotten  childish 
faculty  of  make-believe,  strengthened,  broadened  a  little 
by  real,  sometimes  but  by  fictional  experience.     But 
even  then,  so  timid  is  mankind,  they  would  rather 
play  with  images  safely  and  far  removed  from  likeness 
to  their  everyday  life;  for  they  feel  too  unskilled,  too 
unsure,    to   venture  their  personal   fortimes,   even   in 
thought,  within  viable  distance  of  the  beaten  track. 
But  upon  everyone  at  times  situations  are  forced  in 
which  they  must  play  an  individual  part.     Then  see 
how  at  once  they  turn  to  art  for  aid.    It  is  doubtful  if 
any  articulate  love-making  would  get  done  at  all  had 
not  the  poets  provided  phraseology.     And  what,  fur- 
ther, of  the  occasions  —  we  name  tliem  to  our  shame  — 
when,  called  on  for  emotion  and  imable  to  respond,  we 
turn,  unconsciously,  to  our  "novel"  experience,  and 
say:    "Well,  this  —  at  any  rate  —  is  how  I  oiight  to 
feel?"    And,  be  it  noted,  we  commit  ourselves  thereby 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  61 

to  many  a  false  step.  For  a  life  whose  emotions  are  so 
far  reflected  fiction  that  experience  passes  without 
response  or  interpretation  builds  up  a  character  com- 
plete in  falsity.  Not  an  unworthy  falsity,  we  may  pro- 
test, for  our  novel  reading  may  have  been  pleasantly 
innocuous.  But  if  we  apply  the  hard,  high  standard  of 
artistry  to  the  matter,  an  arbitrary  reaction  to  an  arti- 
ficial stimulus  becomes  the  unworthiest  thing  of  all, 
and  the  resulting  emptiness  of  virtue,  hollowly  resound- 
ing, the  deepest  damnation.  If  art,  though,  is  the 
reflex  of  good  life,  what  other  standard  should  we  apply  ? 
Which  of  us,  after  all,  can  care  to  own  to  a  character 
pieced  together  from  scraps  of  even  the  very  best 
novels?  Not  that  art,  if  we  rightly  respond  to  it, 
makes  any  such  claims  of  slavery  upon  us.  As  its  aim 
is  to  interpret,  not  to  create,  illusion,  so  its  end  is  not 
to  hold  us  by  its  own  sufficiency,  but,  nurturing  us, 
even  in  its  own  despite  to  set  us  free.  It  is  nonsense 
to  say  that  when  the  glamour  of  the  fairy  tale, 
the  theatre,  of  our  first  emotions  when  we  hear  fine 
music,  has  gone  enjoyment  goes  too,  for  appreci- 
ation is  only  then  beginning.  By  education  we  lose, 
no  doubt,  some  chances  of  unalloyed  pleasure.  But 
our  keener  discernment  not  only  of  the  qualities 
of  story,  play,  or  symphony,  but  of  the  intentions 
of  their  interpretation,  more  than  compensates  for 
the  loss. 

From  this  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  we  get  most 
stimulus  from  the  arts  that  call  upon  us  for  a  constant, 
lively,  critical  attention.  For  educational  purposes, 
then,  they  are  surely  the  best.  A  picture  makes  but 
little  noise  in  the  world;  you  must  keep  very  actively 
keen  and  sensitive  not  to  pass  it  by  acquiescently.  But 
even  after  dinner  you  cannot  sit  through  a  symphony 
without  knowing  whether  you  like  it  or  not.  Take 
up  a  novel  in  the  evening.  You  may  read  it,  or  skip 
half  of  it,  or  throw  it  aside;  you  feel  under  no  obli- 


62  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

gations  to  its  inanimation.  But  play-going  is  a  social 
act,  and  makes  demands  upon  you  that  are  direct  and 
incidental,  both. 

Granted,  then  —  apart  from  the  benefit  of  studying 
particular  arts  —  our  first  need  for  training  in  this 
fundamental  artistry  of  self-realization  and  expression, 
the  case  for  music  will  be  strong  and  the  case  —  that 
we  are  now  more  concerned  to  argue  —  for  the  drama 
against  the  novel  very  strong. 

There  would  be  no  need  to  urge  the  case  as  against 
the  novel  if  it  did  not,  by  force  of  circumstances,  so 

easily  hold  the  field,  and  if  the  theatre  were 

^^ea  re    ^^^  ^^  ^^iq  whole  one  vast  missed  opportunity. 

novel        Compare  the  two  arts  to-day,  and,  popularity 

apart,  the  novel  is  at  its  best.  The  theatre, 
if  not  at  its  worst  artistically,  has  yet  its  economic 
foot  stuck  fast  in  a  slough.  But  in  the  first  are  strains 
of  weakness,  more  than  those  we  have  already  pitched 
on;    in  the  other,  of  great  strength. 

For  one  thing  the  novel  is  under  the  curse  —  that 
sort  of  curse  to  which  uncalculated  blessings  turn  —  of 
cheap  printing.  Man,  having  found  out  how  to  make 
cheap  paper  and  marvellous  printing-machines,  lets 
himself  be  caught  in  the  meshes  of  the  big  industries 
that  result.  It  is  in  their  interests  that  the  paper  must 
now  be  made  and  the  machine  kept  going,  and  art  is 
called  into  service  upon  the  industry's  terms.  The 
public,  it  seems,  can  be  brought  to  absorb  a  vast  and 
varied  amount  of  "  f resh-and-f resh  "  reading.  It  is  to 
this  saturation  point,  therefore,  that  the  captains  of 
the  industry  naturally  strive.  Publishers  and  editors 
give,  no  doubt,  what  consideration  they  can  to  quality 
of  output,  but  the  obligation  that  predominates  with 
them  is  to  do  a  certain  quantity  of  trade.  Now  the 
qiiah'ly  of  the  world's  literary  talent  has  certainly  not 
increased  in  the  ratio  of  its  mechanical  power  to  print, 
bind,  and  sell  books,  or  of  the  multiplication  of  people 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  68 

for  whom,  reading  being  a  comparative  novelty,  any 
reading  passes  muster.  Therefore  the  average  quahty 
of  the  output  has  —  let  us  not  say  fallen,  but  certainly 
tended  to  adjust  itself  to  the  conditions  that  make  for 
industrial  success.  We  have  a  smooth  supply  of  rapidly 
readable  and  —  that  more  may  be  demanded  —  as 
rapidly  forgettable  stuff.  The  average  novel  calls  for 
neither  assent  nor  dissent  on  the  part  of  the  reader. 
It  is  a  harmless,  agreeable  companion.  It  is  not  stimu- 
lant :  an  art  which  has  private  reading  —  almost  in- 
variably —  as  the  basis  of  its  appreciation  is  the  least 
likely  to  be.  Reading  and  writing,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, are,  for  artistic  purposes,  nothing  but  labour- 
saving  devices,  and  therefore  very  subject  to  abuse 
once  an  unconscious  use  of  them  has  been  acquired.  If 
art  is  concerned  with  the  operation  of  human  spirit 
upon  human  spirit,  through  the  medium  of  an  amal- 
gam of  sense  and  brain,  varyingly  constituted,  but 
each  a  necessary  constituent,  then  purely  mechanical 
intervention  must  always  have  an  impoverishing  effect 
in  so  far  as  it  places  expression  and  impression  beyond 
the  immediate  control  of  giver  and  receiver.  Poets 
justly  complain  that  the  printing  press  debases  their 
art;  fortunately  the  habit  of  testing  poems  by  the  living 
voice  is  of  long  survival.  Would  it  be  better  if  we 
learned  to  enjoy  music  solely  by  the  reading  of  scores, 
and  for  the  sake  of  that  mental  achievement  let  our 
sense  of  hearing  and  the  effect,  direct  and  indirect, 
upon  our  emotions  sink  into  atrophy? 

We  must  think,  too,  if  we  are  thinking  of  the  novel 
educationally,  of  the  moral  hypnosis  which  is  latent 
in  solitary  and  silent  enjoyment  of  the  narrative  form. 
We  are  conscious  of  this  danger  as  it  affects  our  con- 
sideration of  facts,  and  at  present,  perhaps,  are  in  some 
reaction  against  it.  It  is  said  that  the  Russian  peasant 
believes  that  whatever  he  sees  in  print  must,  in  virtue 
of  the  printing,  be  true.     His  late  dose  of  education. 


64  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

practical  and  other,  may,  however,  have  roused  him 
from  this  attractive  delusion.  We,  with  our  book-learn- 
ing just  a  little  staler  upon  the  crowd  of  us,  though 
with  the  smell  of  the  printer's  ink  still  sickly  in  our 
nostrils  and  strange  after  the  farmyard  whiffs  of  our 
racial  boyhood,  are  more  in  train  to  a  state  of  con- 
viction that  whatever  we  read  is,  other  evidence  to 
the  contrary  lacking,  a  lie.  But  whether  we  yield  or 
rebel  it  is  useless  to  blame  the  h;^T3notist.  It  may  be 
that  the  so  common  use  of  printing,  and  the  ephemeral 
character  of  most  things  printed,  do  inevitably  breed 
away  in  those  in  control  their  sense  of  artistic  respon- 
sibility, and  that  moral  responsibility  tends  naturally 
to  follow  it  into  desuetude,  for  the  two  are  finally  one. 
All  the  more  reason,  then,  that  we  should  train  our 
critical  perceptions  upon  other  ground.  The  advan- 
tages of  the  narrative  form  are  many  and  not  to  be 
denied.  It  can  play,  at  the  writer's  will,  all  round  a 
subject,  unfettered  by  any  unity  of  time  and  place, 
allusive,  argumentative,  didactic.  But  in  this  very 
freedom  lies  the  temptation  to  the  writer  and  the 
danger  to  us.  Our  relations  with  him  do  seem  so  direct 
and  intimate.  We,  carried  away,  have  forgotten  the 
mechanical  bond,  the  human  distance.  Has  he.'^  He 
has  his  conscience  to  depend  on,  little  else.  If  he  is 
writing  of  matters  of  a  knowledge  accepted  by  him  and 
his  readers  the  double  bulwark  may  sufficiently  brace 
him.  But  when  he  begins  to  roam  over  the  always 
disputable  tracts  of  the  imagination  it  is  much  to  expect 
of  a  man  that  he  be  aware,  sentence  by  sentence,  of 
readers,  keen  and  critical  to  the  exact  measure  of  his 
own  creative  power.  But  this  and  no  less  is  what  he 
needs.  And  even  the  most  finely  developed  literary 
conscience  is  no  good  substitute,  for,  being  but  a  reflex 
of  his  own  creative  mind,  it  will  fasten  upon  favourite 
virtues  and  vices,  so  that  virtues  will  grow  hyper- 
trophied  and  vices   (we  must  be  tender  to  our  own 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  65 

weaknesses;  no  one  else  will)  be  cockered  up  and,  by- 
careful  cultivation,  given  the  importance  of  virtue. 
There  are  instances  enough  of  writers  of  individuality 
who,  isolated  by  neglect  or  unimpressed  by  criticism, 
have  by  simple  over-exercise  of  conscience  so  turned 
in  upon  themselves,  so  postured  before  this  glass,  as 
to  end  in  a  set  self-caricature.  Art  (which  is  in  itself 
a  reflex)  cannot  exist  alone.  It  needs  the  continual 
reminder  of  an  audience.  That  it  mainly  gets  and 
suffers  under  a  stupid  audience  is  a  curable  evil.  The 
clown  tumbling  in  the  circus  at  least  functions  more 
naturally  than  does  the  novelist,  proof -correcting  in 
solitude. 

Art  needs  also  the  discipline  of  form  —  the  only  im- 
position of  law  to  which  the  artist  may  submit.  Nor 
is  this  necessarily  a  limitation.  Form  is  the  equivalent 
of  a  code  of  manners  by  which  performer  and  audience 
are  at  once  put  on  terms  with  each  other.*  In  rigidity 
it  may  equally  become  a  nuisance.  But  as  manners 
are  the  framework  of  a  free  society,  so  is  a  friendly 
agreement  upon  form  a  necessary  basis  for  the  social 
arts.  And  the  directly  interpretative  arts  of  music, 
dancing,  story-telling  are,  in  their  design  and  essence, 
social.  That  cheap  printing,  then,  has  ousted  them 
and  has  brought  the  novel,  not  only  to  every  fireside, 
but  into  more  solitary  corners,  has  its  disadvantages 

*  Notice  Sir  Harry  Lauder,  whose  capital  asset  is  Lis  ability  to 
put  his  audience  at  their  ease.  There  could  be  no  more  simple 
material  than  his,  and  one  might  suppose  that  his  every  effort 
would  be  to  invest  it  with  variety  .  .  .  not  only  of  content,  but  of 
form  also.  On  the  contrary,  he  carefully  stops  short  at  the  bare 
assumption  of  a  fresh  character.  Tliis  he  will  elaborate.  But  — 
and  just  because  perhaps  he  must  reserve  for  each  new  audience  a 
measure  of  spontaneity  —  he  preserves  a  constant  form  to  work 
within,  of  entrance,  movement,  exit,  final  glance  at  the  gallery.  It 
is  all  as  rigidly  conventional  as  a  Greek  tragedy.  He  bounds  his 
audience's  expectations,  that  is  to  say,  into  the  exact  space  where 
he  chooses  to  fulfil  them. 


66  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

from  a  cultural  standpoint.  And  just  as  a  religion  sus- 
tained mainly  upon  reading  of  the  Bible  grows  to  be 
uncomfortably  concerned  with  individual  salvation,  so 
a  social  culture  fostered  by  overdoses  of  fiction  tends  to 
an  emotional  and  spiritual  obscurantism.  Appetite  is 
spoiled  by  silent  indulgence.  One  grows  too  timid  to 
put  oneself  to  the  test  of  expression  and  obstinate  in 
the  degree  of  one's  tacit  inexperience. 

Wherein,  now,  can  the  drama  better  the 
?.^°°  novel  as  an  imaginative  stimulant.^     To 

begin  with,  it  is,  willy-nilly,  a  social  art  in 
a  sense  that  the  novel  cannot  be.  The  defect  of  this 
quality,  certainly,  is  that  it  lends  itself  to  mob  appeal: 
claptrap  is  its  own  word  though  no  longer  its  peculiar 
stigma.  But  mob  is  only  social  gathering  degenerate, 
unwieldy,  or  —  more  hopefully  viewed  —  uneducated 
and  therefore  capable  of  development  into  a  self- 
respecting  organism.  The  psychology  of  audiences 
is  too  involved  a  subject  for  us  to  deal  with  it  here 
at  large.  But  no  one  would  deny  that  they  differ 
in  quality.  They  differ,  an  actor  will  tell  us,  in 
their  attitude  towards  the  same  play  and  the  same 
company,  from  city  to  city  and  night  to  night.  Nor 
does  their  quality  at  all  depend  on  their  size,  or 
their  class,  or  the  prices  they  pay.  It  is  not  a  very 
calculable  matter,  for  most  audiences  to-day  come  to- 
gether haphazard.  But  imagine  a  panel  of  from  ten 
to  twenty  thousand  people  from  which  the  great  major- 
ity of  a  theatre's  audience  for  any  one  performance 
would  be  drawn.  Is  it  fantastic  to  suppose  that  by 
constant,  though  varying,  association  in  bodies  of  a 
thousand  more  or  less,  to  form  a  part,  though  but  a 
passive  and  surrounding  part,  of  such  a  highly-vitalized, 
single-purposed  organization  as  is  the  acting  company 
of  a  theatre,  they  would  not  develop  a  corporate  spirit? 
Admit  this  possibility  and  the  tlicatre's  pre-eminence 
among  the  social  arts  is  admitted  also.     Music  might 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  67 

run  it  hard,  but  no  other.    It  remains  to  discover  how 
best  to  cultivate  this  aspect  of  it. 

The  stimulus  that  a  good  audience  must  be  to  the 
art  of  the  theatre  will  not  be  denied.  As  audience,  we 
may  not  get  the  plays  and  the  acting  we  desire,  for, 
having  no  corporate  spirit  in  the  matter,  our  desires 
are  inarticulate;  they  are,  perhaps,  hardly  formed.  But 
we  do,  in  art  as  in  government,  get  what  we  passively 
deserve.  Even  active  negation  would  be  more  helpful. 
There  will  be  great  hope  for  the  theatre  on  the  day 
that  a  play  is  soundly  hissed  for  its  artistic  demerits. 
And  who,  being  a  loyal  servant  of  his  art,  but  would 
wish,  not  for  a  pit  of  kings  —  they,  of  all  people  in 
these  constitutional  days,  must  take  what  they  are 
given  without  grumbling  —  nor  even  for  a  front  row 
of  his  fellow-dramatists,  since  the  expert  talker  is 
mostly  a  bad  listener,  but  for  an  audience  trained  in 
the  art's  understanding,  with  taste  sharpened  by  ex- 
perience. Who  is  so  sure  of  his  own  self- judgment 
that  he  may  despise  this  test  of  his  work.?  The  theatre, 
as  we  have  said,  retains  as  much  as  in  its  developed 
complexity  it  may  of  art's  primitive  strength  in  the 
direct  impact  of  human  personalities  that  is  involved. 
The  bard  chanting  his  Homer  in  a  Dorian  hall  was  a 
degree,  though  but  a  degree  *  directer  in  his  appeal. 
The  loss  and  divergence  which  ensues  upon  intro- 
duction of  the  third  factor,  the  play,  finds  compen- 
sation, surely,  and  more,  in  the  added  interest,  the 
richer  complexity  of  emotion  now  made  possible.  The 
spectator  of  Hamlet,  brought  to  a  mimic  intimacy 
with  this  little  world,  a  part  of  it  yet  not  a  part  as 
he  yields  himself  to  the  influence  of  the  performance 
or  criticises  the  matter  of  the  play,  typifies,  too,  not 
inaptly  the  sentient  citizen  of  a  more  sympathetic, 
maybe,  but  a  more  detachedly  knowledgeable  age. 

*  See  Murray's  "Rise  of  the  Greek  Epic." 


68  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

And  drama  holds  the  discipHne  of  form.  This  is 
thrust  upon  the  dramatist  by  the  necessity  of  a  defined 
relation  with  the  actors;  upon  the  actors  by  their  need 
of  an  understanding  with  the  audience;  the  audience, 
too,  are  accepting  from  the  curtain's  rise  a  somewhat 
strict  convention.  None  of  the  parties  to  the  com- 
pleting of  a  play  by  performance  can  travel  very  *far 
without  the  agreement  of  the  others.  Actors  and 
author  must  have  agreed  in  great  detail  upon  both 
content  and  form.  The  appearance  of  this  agree- 
ment must  for  each  occasion  be  complete,  though  its 
extent  will  be  neither  constant  nor  very  definable.  The 
simpler  phases  of  the  understanding  between  actors  and 
audience,  as  exemplified  in  language  and  gesture,  are 
so  implicit  as  connnonly  to  escape  notice,*  But  this 
relation  is  capable  of  a  high  degree  of  development. 
How  do  we  acquire  that  unconscious  knowledge  by 
which  the  minds  and  moods  of  familiar  friends  are 
opened  to  us.^  They  use  only  the  words  that  strangers 
use,  but  by  reason  of  a  hundred  gradations  of  tone, 
turns  of  phrase,  by  looks  and  gestures,  the  meaning  is 
doubled,  trebled,  intensified  out  of  all  likeness.  It  is 
not  the  mere  fruit  of  experience,  a  reading  into  the 
present  of  an  accumulated  past.  Years  of  external 
familiarity  with  a  man  will  yet  leave  him  a  stranger; 
and,  too  truly,  one's  knowledge  of  actors  and  their 
work  may,  by  experience,  come  to  nothing  but  ex- 
trcmest  boredom.  But  in  the  relation  between  the 
characters  of  a  play  as  stated  and  clarified  by  the 
dramatist,  as  interpreted  and  vivified  by  the  actors, 
there  is  a  parallel  to  the  bond  of  friendship.  It  is 
reducible,  if  not  to  rule,  at  least  to  constancy  in 
terms  of  art.    And  the  audience,   further,   by   appre- 

*  But  let  an  Englishman  watch  a  play  in  Sicily.  He  may  or 
may  not  nnderstand  tlic  spoken  language,  but  he  will  at  once  be 
consci(jus  how  the  meaning  of  gesture  is  passing  him  by,  plain 
though  it  be  to  his  native  neighbours. 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  69 

ciation  of  the  actors'  work  upon  the  play,  by  their  own 
assumption,  moreover,  of  a  direct  intellectual  interest 
in  the  play,  can  establish  with  the  actors  a  relation  of 
imaginative  intimacy  which  by  its  very  limitation,  its 
de-personalization,  its  disinterestedness  —  actors  and 
audience  being  related  to  each  other  only  by  their 
interest  in  the  play  —  is  the  more  informing.  And  it 
is  upon  the  possibilities  of  this  collaboration,  little 
explored  as  yet,  that,  as  we  shall  hope  to  show,  the 
theatre  may  best  base  its  claim  to  consideration  as  an 
educative  art. 

It  has  others.  Something  is  to  be  said  for  its  ability 
to  combine  so  many  sister  arts  in  its  service.  Music, 
painting,  dancing,  literature  find  a  common  occasion, 
and  should  find  a  common  purpose,  in  the  theatre.  Its 
educational  claims  as  a  vehicle  of  physical  self-expres- 
sion are  admitted ;  and  there  is  a  case  to  be  made  —  not 
a  bad  one  —  for  the  purely  educational  use  of  its  liter- 
ature. For  some  study  and  practice  in  the  construction 
of  plays  and  the  close-knitting  of  their  dialogue  is,  per- 
haps, as  useful  a  discipline  in  the  shaping  of  thoughts 
and  their  putting  upon  paper  as  "composition,"  Latin 
or  Greek  verse,  or  precis  writing. 

But,  leaving  all  this,  let  us  see  how  the  "larger  col- 
laboration"—  as  we  may  call  it  —  of  audience  with 
actors   and   dramatist   may   be   built  up. 
We  can  begin  with  the  apparently  simple     '^^^     . 
plan  by  which  a  body  of  men  and  women  , 

sit  round  a  table  and  mutually  study  a  drama 
play.  Not  to  discuss  theories  of  play- 
writing  or  acting  or  production.  Such  things  form, 
no  doubt,  an  excellent  mental  background;  and  in 
this  relation  they  might  have,  perhaps,  about  the 
value  that  scenery  will  have  to  a  play's  acting.  But 
what  we  are  after  now  is  a  dose  of  this  primary  virtue 
of  the  dramatic  form,  the  direct  impact  of  one  human 
individuality  upon  another,  clarified,  and  convention- 


70  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

alized,  by  the  assumption  and  interpretation  of  char- 
acter, diversified  and  enriched  by  the  side-glancing 
that  even  the  smallest  elaboration  of  a  play  involves 
with  its  interweaving  of  other  interests;  and  the  final 
development  of  some  unity  of  idea,  some  conviction. 
There  are  possibly  fifty  different  ways  by  which  this 
study  can  be  conducted  and  as  many  degrees  of  its 
elaboration.  But  the  essential  thing  is  to  keep  it  upon 
these  terms  of  impersonative  interpretation,  for  only 
while  in  a  state  of  artistic  life  will  a  play  yield  us  any- 
thing of  its  peculiar  quality.  With  the  breath  out  of 
its  body,  so  to  speak,  it  is  nothing  but  a  constricted  if 
interesting  form  of  literature,  worthy,  no  doubt,  of 
the  learned  footnotes  that  cling  to  line  after  line  of  its 
classic  examples.  How  often,  though,  are  these  but 
the  barrenest  wrangling  upon  questions  that  would 
answer  themselves  if  the  play  were  raised  from  its 
tomb  of  printed  paper .^  They  are  appropriate  only  to 
that  ghost  of  the  play,  haunting  thus  disembodied  the 
dry  mind  of  the  solitary  scholar! 

Not  that  the  study  need  aim,  with  the  usual  expedi- 
tion, at  a  performance  of  the  play.  That  would  at 
once  involve  us  in  the  penalty  under  which  the  profes- 
sional actor  now  lies.  He  may  talk  about  studying  a 
part  or  a  play,  but  his  concern  with  it  is  really  very 
difl'erent.  His  work  will  rapidly  be  brought  to  the 
test  of  an  effect  in  which,  so  to  speak,  all  questions  must 
be  begged :  it  will  be  for  him  to  assume  such  a  complete 
identity  with  his  part  and  the  play  as  must  suspend  his 
critical  faculties  in  regard  to  it  altogether.  His  own 
fortunes  are  involved,  and  his  concern  will  be  to  exploit 
the  play's  virtues,  especially  the  more  obvious  ones, 
and  to  ignore  or  to  cover  its  weaknesses.  He  will  feel, 
too,  that  he  must  add  from  his  own  personal  resources 
whatever  it  seems  to  lack,  and  in  the  i)rocess,  like  a 
rulliless  restorer  of  a  building,  will  often  cut  into  and 
disfigure  the  fabric.    This  is  why  a  play  may  often  be 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  71 

heard  in  fuller  integrity  shouted  through  whole-heart- 
edly and  unself-consciously  by  a  band  of  school  children 
than  panoplied  in  the  skilfullest  acting.  The  profes- 
sional actor's  is  a  good  way,  perhaps,  of  performing  a 
bad  play  —  if  there  is  any  good  way  of  doing  what  had 
better  be  left  undone.  But  it  is  very  often  a  bad  way 
to  perform  a  good  one.  And  a  method  that  so  abne- 
gates criticism  is  quite  unsuited  to  educational  needs. 
For  that  purpose  a  play  must  yield  us  what  we  want 
of  it  in  its  own  despite,  to  its  own  damnation,  if  need  be. 

But  if  neither  the  anatomical  methods  of  the  scholar 
nor  the  exhibitive  standards  of  the  actor  will  serve  our 
purpose,  to  what  is  it  that  we  are  turning?  We  cannot 
have  drama  in  abstraction,  so  to  speak.  Of  all  the  arts, 
because  of  its  collaborative  qualities,  it  formulates  it- 
self most  elaborately.  Its  medium  is  in  one  sense  the 
simplest  possible.  Our  recipe  for  the  study  or  per- 
formance of  a  play  might  begin:  Take  the  requisite 
number  of  ordinary  human  beings  — .  But  for  its 
full  development  it  requires  nothing  less  than  the  com- 
plex organization  of  a  theatre.  Indeed,  if  for  no  other 
reason  than  that  as  evidence  of  worth  we  must  have 
instances  of  perfection  (or  as  near  as  the  human  me- 
dium may  aspire  to),  and  that  precept  without  example 
will  never  convince  us,  drama  must  be  studied  con- 
cretely; it  is  not  to  be  separated  from  the  theatre.  Yet 
again,  if  it  is  the  art  of  the  theatre  itself  that  we  are  to 
regard  as  educative,  not  merely  its  component  parts 
made  use  of  as  physical  and  emotional  exercises,  it  will 
be  only  in  the  development  of  that  art,  purely  for  its 
own  sake,  that  its  wider  uses  will  become  completely 
apparent.  Our  system  of  study,  then,  for  all  its  de- 
tachment from  the  present  uses  of  drama,  must  yet 
centre  in  a  theatre  —  an  exemplary  theatre,  we  may 
call  it. 

And  in  what,  more  precisely,  must  this  exemplary 
theatre  differ  from  theatres  as  we  now  know  them? 


72  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

A  theatre  to-day  is,  as  a  rule,  a  place  of  entertain- 
ment where  plays  are  produced.     A  sounder  purpose 

strives  to  make  of  it  an  institution  where 
■^°®  they  are  kept  alive  —  a  library  of  drama, 

theatre  Following  this  narrow  path  of  reform  we 

might  still  hope  to  better  plays,  production 
and  entertainment,  all  three,  even  beyond  recognition; 
to  sustain  and  increase  the  drama's  life  very  greatly ; 
But  if  what  we  have  said  about  the  wider  uses  of 
dramatic  art  is  sound,  then  to  do  this  and  no  more 
would  be  to  make  a  one-sided  effort  to  do  an  arti- 
ficial thing,  which  would  have  no  more  continuing 
life  in  it  than  have  other  arts  divorced  from  utility. 
If  we  can  think,  though,  of  the  theatre  as  a  place  where 
dramatic  art  is  to  be  studied  and  conserved  for  its  own 
sake,  from  where  it  is  to  be  disseminated  in  every 
demonstrable  form,  not  only  in  the  single  one  of  the 
acted  play,  we  shall  have  cleared  our  mental  ground. 
The  true  theatre,  then,  is  to  be  a  place  for  the  study 
and  development  of  dramatic  art,  and  it  must  have  no 
more  limited  function.  The  striking  of  a  balance,  how- 
ever, between  the  art's  intensive  cultivation  in  the  pro- 
duction of  plays  and  its  extensive  use  as  a  means  of 
general  education  is  a  task  that,  with  the  first  activity 
so  familiar  to  us  and.  the  second  so  strange,  cannot  be 
attempted  dogmatically  by  a  few  phrases:  it  is  a 
matter  yet  more  for  discovery  than  argument.  In  any 
given  institution  a  balance  could  only  be  struck,  cer- 
tainly by  experiment,  in  the  end  probably  by  circum- 
stance. But  a  contention  that  various  sorts  of  theatres 
would  always  exist,  and  ought  always  to  exist,  from 
those  devoted  only  to  the  production  of  plays  to  those 
given  almost  wholly  to  study  and  teaching,  does  not 
affect  the  validity  of  our  main  conception  of  one  which 
would  completely  and  comprehensively  exemplify  dra- 
matic art.  And  if  we  also  imagine  it  in  terms  of  a  stark 
perfection,  which,  if  attained,  might  burst  the  bonds  of 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  73 

its  being  altogether  (for  doubtless  dramatic  art  might 
develop  beyond  the  power  of  any  theatre  to  hold  it),  we 
shall  still  not  look  too  far  if  our  direction  is  right.  For 
all  our  talk  the  drama  is  in  no  danger  of  ascending 
into  an  artistic  heaven,  leaving  its  profitable  mundane 
mission  unfulfilled. 

And  though  we  start,  quite  legitimately,  from  a  con- 
ception of  the  theatre  as  school,  this  by  no  means  rubs 
out,  but  should  rather  enhance,  the  more  entertaining 
use  of  it.  For  how  ever  broad  the  basis  of  its  educational 
work,  this  will  properly  be  conditioned  by  what  are  to 
be  the  summits  of  its  achievement.  Its  directors  will 
naturally  and  rightly  assume  that  if  the  courses  of 
study  there,  pursued  to  their  end,  make  for  the  perfect 
production  of  a  good  play,  they  contain,  in  virtue  of 
that,  all  the  necessary  educational  qualities.  The 
theatre,  in  fact,  to  be  exemplary,  must  exemplify  its 
teaching;  it  must  produce  plays.  It  does  not  follow 
that  all  students  need  pursue  the  courses  to  this  actual 
end,  and  specialize  as  actors,  playwrights,  producers, 
and  the  like;  and  it  will  be  quite  as  important  to  insist 
that,  for  those  who  do,  any  training  too  extreme,  too 
acrobatic  in  its  kind  to  be,  roughly  speaking,  of  any 
non-professional  use  at  all  will  be  harmful  to  them  in 
particular  and  generally  false  to  an  exemplary  theatre's 
principles.  To-day  few  people  would  dream  of  going  to 
a  school  of  drama  but  to  learn  to  be  an  actor,  and,  as 
a  consequence,  the  study  of  acting  is  pitifully  narrowed. 
Our  theatre  as  school  must  be  a  thing  of  much  wider 
comprehension  than  any  existing  school  of  the  theatre. 
Nor  could  we  get  what  we  wanted  simply  by  adding 
fresh  subjects  to  any  accepted  dramatic  curriculum,  nor 
by  turning  any  existing  theatre  into  a  school.  Every 
theatre  and  school  to-day  is  involved  in  a  vicious  circle 
of  narrowness  —  let  it  even  be  brutally  said,  of  incom- 
petence —  that  must  be  broken  before  the  wider  circle 
can  be  begun.    Now  professional  acting  will  be  an  im- 


74  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

portant  product  of  the  exemplary  theatre,  it  will  be  in 
a  position  of  mastership  there;  but,  to  begin  with,  it 
must  itself  go  to  school  again. 

It  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  ask  why,  with  the  circle 
of  the  power  of  the  drama  widening  for  this  last  gener- 
ation, the  circle  of  technical  achievement 
•      V.  "^  ^^^  interpretation  has  been  not  merely 

acting  failing  to  widen  in  response,  but  actually 

tradition  narrowing.     For  it  can  hardly  be  denied 

that  this  is  true,  making  all  the  allowance 
we  will  for  the  occasional  touch  of  spleen  in  an  older 
generation  displaced  by  a  younger  —  though,  indeed, 
among  actors  there  is  oftener  to  be  found  great  gen- 
erosity in  acknowledging  the  new  regime  —  and  for 
the  subtler  difficulty  that  our  impressions  of  the  per- 
formances of  plays  do  undoubtedly  improve  by  keep- 
ing, and  in  our  memory  of  them  are  probably  at  their 
very  best  just  as  we  are  at  the  point  of  forgetting  them 
altogether.  The  actor  of  a  generation  ago  may  have 
needed  fewer  accomplishments;  he  can  probably  claim 
with  justice  that  he  kept  those  he  had  in  far  better 
trim.  That  he  did  as  a  rule  need  far  fewer  no  one 
would  deny.  Consider  the  repertory  of  plays  in  one 
of  the  "famous"  old  stock  companies,  and  their  aver- 
age quality,  and  compare  it  with  what  would  be  as 
representative  a  selection  of  drama  to-day!  And  the 
old  stock  company  system,  with  its  "line"  of  parts  for 
each  actor,  in  which,  by  much  repetition,  under  vary- 
ing circumstances,  he  could  train  himself  to  a  certain 
pitch  of  perfection,  could  only  have  made  for  a  very 
narrow,  if  for  a  very  definite,  achievement  of  sheer 
skill.  In  the  actors  who  never  succeeded  to  much 
more  than  secondary  parts  it  was  even,  perhaps,  quite 
sui)erncial  skill.  Good  stage  manners  were  enough  to 
raise  the  body  of  the  plays  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighlecTilh-contury  drama  to  a  sufficiently  respectable 
level   of   interpretation.    Performances  of  them  must 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  75 

have  rather  resembled  the  dancing  of  quadrilles.  While 
if  for  most  of  the  plays  written  between  1800  and  18G0 
any  more  than  this  pleasant  gymnastic  was  desired, 
not  even  so  much  did  they  deserve.  And  for  the  full 
effect  of  the  more  important  parts  an  audience  relied, 
then  as  now,  upon  a  touch  of  something  uncommon  in 
the  actor,  or,  failing  it,  fell  back  upon  the  interest  of 
the  play  itself. 

After  1870  (I  write  of  England)  the  leading  stock 
companies  began  to  decline.  There  were  a  number  of 
causes  for  their  weakening,  but  eminent  among  these 
certainly  was  the  coming  of  a  new  sort  of  play  into 
which  the  actors  of  "lines"  of  parts  could  not  be  fitted. 
The  change  is  mirrored  faithfully  and  wittily,  as  every 
student  of  modern  theatrical  history  knows,  in  Pinero's 
"Trelawney  of  the  Wells."  There  it  would  appear 
that  lack  of  fitness  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  "old" 
actor's  undoing,  and  no  doubt  the  peremptory  demands 
of  the  "new"  dramatist  did  deal  him  the  first  and  the 
sharpest  blow.  But  economic  influences  finally  under- 
mined the  system,  since  it  seemed  worth  nobody's 
while  to  adjust  it  to  new  conditions.*  With  the  stock 
system,  then,  that  particular  sort  of  training  went,  and 
there  were  few,  thinking  twice  about  the  matter,  to 
weep  for  it. 

It  is  not  so  easy  to  determine  all  the  influences  in  the 

rise  of  the  next  school  of  English  acting;  while,  as  to 

its  fall,  the  very  fact  will  still  be  matter 

of  dispute,  much  more  the  conditions  that     ^^  ®^  !°°' 

1  «•  1   •        mi  11  1         Bancroft: 

may  have  enected  it.     Ihe  school  can  be     pinero 

pretty  accurately  and  very  honourably  de- 
scribed as  the  Robertson-Bancroft-Pinero  school.     One 
thing  should  be  noted  about  the  early  training  of,  at 

*  The  economic  influences  are  to  be  summed  up  in  the  discovery 
that  the  touring  of  complete  productions  could  be  made  to  pay. 
The  disappearance  of  the  prejudice  against  Sunday  travelling  had 
some  effect  too. 


76  THE    EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

any  rate,  its  earliest  leading  figures.  They  found  the 
stock  companies  surviving  as  opportunities  of  some 
sort  of  apprenticeship.  They  would  probably  deny, 
and  with  justice,  that  they  found  much  inspiration 
in  them,  though  some  of  the  companies  made  an 
effort,  no  doubt,  to  inform  the  new  dispensation  with 
the  spirit  of  the  old.  But  if  they  only  learnt  by  ex- 
periment what  not  to  do  they  were  so  much  to  the 
good,  and  were  the  freer  to  bring  disencumbered  imagi- 
nations to  bear  upon  the  fresh  and  hopefuller  tasks 
with  which  the  new  dramatists  were  providing  them. 
Priority  among  these,  in  time  and  in  influence  com- 
bined, belongs  to  T.  W.  Robertson;  we  must  envisage 
the  effective  part  of  his  playwright's  career,  and  the 
consequences,  perhaps,  of  its  untimely  ending.  He  pro- 
vided material  so  simple  as  to  be  peculiarly  suited  for 
the  working  out  by  its  means  of  the  beginnings  of  a 
new  way  of  acting.  And  it  is  especially  noteworthy 
that  the  protagonists  of  liis  success  were  Marie  Wilton, 
till  then  a  burlesque  actress  —  a  dainty  and  charming 
burlesque  actress  no  doubt,  but  regarded  probably  by 
the  mandarins  of  the  theatre  of  the  eighteen-sixties  as 
something  of  an  outsider  —  and  Squire  Bancroft,  who 
was  currently  referred  to,  one  suspects,  by  these  same 
mandarins  as  a  damned  amateur.  Reforms  and  revolu- 
tions both  are  carried  througli  by  minorities.  Nor 
could  this  Robertson-Bancroft  influence,  by  its  very 
nature,  be  widespread.  It  tended  only  to  the  develop- 
ment of  a  gentk'  comedic  talent;  it  created  nothing  but 
a  cup-and-saucer  school  of  drama;  a  small  thing,  no 
doubt,  measured  against  iEschylus,  Shakespeare,  and 
Moliere.  But  the  cups  and  saucers  were  of  the  best 
china,  and  they  were  delicately  and  deftly  handled. 
The  influence,  however,  was  not  even  long-lasting. 
Robertson  died,  and  it  seemed  th.it  he  would  have  no 
successors.  Albery,  who  had  shown  promise  —  in  his 
"Two  Roses"  rather  more  than  promise  —  dropped 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  77 

out  of  account.  What  was  Bancroft,  as  managerial 
leader  of  the  movement,  to  do?  He  lacked  material. 
He  made  other  quite  gallant  expermients  in  native 
drama,  and  they  failed.  So,  at  last,  in  desperation,  he 
turned  back  to  the  potent  French  theatre  for  a  supply. 
It  was,  Heaven  knows,  a  broad  and  already  well-beaten 
track  that  thus  led  him  away  from  the  straighter  and 
suddenly  steeper  path  to  the  revival  of  a  national  art. ' 
We  are  not  here  concerned  with  the  temporary  wisdom 
of  this  policy,  with  any  question  of  its  inevitability, 
nor,  directly,  with  its  effect  upon  the  rising  wave  of 
English  play-writing.  As  a  fact  the  native  playwright 
of  later  arrival,  when  his  talent  was  native  at  all,  did 
go  ahead,  and  kept  his  eyes  fixed  on  his  own  course 
with  commendable  persistence.  But  the  compulsion 
thus  laid  afresh  at  that  critical  moment  upon  English 
actors,  cast  in  adapted  French  plays,  to  be  modelling 
their  style  more  than  half  the  time  upon  French  acting 
was  a  serious  matter.  This  is  often  magnificent,  hardly 
ever  lacks  aptitude  and  significance,  and  no  doubt  a 
study  of  its  methods  would  be  as  great  an  addition  to 
any  actor's  education  as  is  some  study  of  the  French 
language  to  education  in  general.  But  it  would  be  no 
good  substitute  for  an  in-and-out  familiarity  with  one's 
own;  and  acting  is  either  an  art  of  intensely  racial  ex- 
pression or  it  is  nothing. 

By  the  time  that  the  third  great  influence  upon  this 
period  came  into  play  —  by  the  eighties  and  nineties, 
when  Bancroft  had  retired*  and  Pinero's  word  was 
law  and  the  discipline  of  one  of  his  productions  the 
worthy  goal  of  every  young  actor's  ambition  —  the 
bastard  style  had  struck  root.  How  far  Pinero  was 
wrongly  attracted  by  what  was  meretricious  in  it,  or 
was  aware  of  its  insufficiency  for  his  final  purposes,  or 
did  try  to  remould  it  to  his  own  taste,  it  is  hard  to  say. 
Possibly  he  does  not  know:   in  art  one  does  what  one 

*  1884. 


78  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

can  at  the  time.  The  playing  of  his  farces,  indeed,  fell 
into  the  true  line  of  our  artistic  succession.  They  were 
eminently  English.  Here  he  may  be  said  to  have 
taken  the  Robertson  tradition  left  derelict,  and  hand- 
somely renewed  and  improved  upon  it.  But  when  he 
turned  to  social  drama  the  French  influence  was  wait- 
ing to  overcome  his  companies.  Perhaps  he  himself  had 
not  wholly  escaped  it.  He  was  trying  new  ground, 
and  a  touch,  now  and  then,  of  the  hand  of  Dumas 
fils  may  have  made  it  feel  firmer.  And  in  any  case 
there  were,  in  this  respect,  many  weaker  vessels  of 
play- writing  than  he;  so  the  general  effect  upon  the  in- 
terpretation of  plays  was  unmistakable. 

The  school  of  acting,  then,  that  shone  at  its  bright- 
est towards  the  end  of  the  last  century,  for  all  its  charm 
and  its  easy  mastery  over  the  material,  good  and  bad, 
clean-cut  or  hashed,  with  which  it  had  to  deal,  rested 
partly  upon  this  false  foundation,  and  was  therefore 
destined,  not  perhaps  to  a  decay  in  the  art  of  its  indi- 
vidual exemplars,  but  inevitably  to  a  failure  of  survival 
in  any  second  generation.  Art  may  temporarily  flour- 
ish, but  it  will  not  seed  and  grow  again  except  upon  a 
native  soil.  These  actors  were,  perhaps,  too  small  and 
too  select  an  aristocracy  of  talent  to  do  more  than  tint, 
historically,  the  age  of  their  predominance  with  gold. 
By  no  fault  of  their  own,  the  art  to  which  they  contrib- 
uted their  best  was,  but  for  a  few  fine  pieces,  the  work 
of  a  playwright  or  two  steadily  pursuing  his  set  purpose, 
a  makeshift,  pinchbeck  affair,  responsive  to  no  serious 
test.  They  brought  their  own  share  in  it  to  perfection, 
though;  and  if,  because  of  this,  they  somewhat  over- 
valued the  total  result,  that  was  but  natural.  Play- 
goers  of  those  years  will  need  no  list  of 
challenee  names:  they  have  them  graven  upon  the 
tablets  of  their  gratitude. 

But  the  next  challenge  of  a  change  brought  its 
cross  purposes,  too.     The  challenger  was  Ibsen,  and 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  79 

the  movement  that  tacked  itself  quite  arbitrarily  to  his 
name.  The  movement  itself  after  a  while  took  on  major 
importance  and  a  native  hue,  so  that  the  apt  reply  from 
those  of  the  older  fashion,  accused  of  subservience 
to  France,  that  knuckling  under  to  Norway  was  no 
better,  dropped  idle.  The  resistance  put  up  against 
this  new  influence  by  the  interests  it  offended  —  criti- 
cal, managerial,  histrionic  —  had  causes  enough.  To 
begin  with,  the  new  plays  were  not  popular.  Now,  if 
popularity  is  jam  to  us  all,  it  is  bread  and  butter  to 
actors.  Plain  bread  may  perhaps  be  earned  without 
it,  but  that's  a  hard  diet  to  choose.  Contributively,  if 
this  sort  of  play  disgruntled  and  puzzled  the  critics,  it 
led  the  actor  also  on  to  uncertain  ground.  The  old  rules 
for  measuring  up  good  parts  and  bad  no  longer  applied, 
and  in  a  critical  battle  over  the  play's  demerits  his  own 
reputation  was  apt  (so  he  feared)  to  go  do\vn.  And 
when  later  the  enthusiasts  for  the  new  school  of  play- 
writing  took  to  exalting  it  by  the  easy  process  of  be- 
littling the  old,  that  made  things  worse  for  him  still: 
he  could  hardly  seem  a  party  to  the  befouling  of  his  once 
comfortable  nest.  There  was  often,  no  doubt,  mis- 
guided zeal  on  the  one  side,  but,  really,  there  was  more 
stupidity,  timidity,  and  sheer  lazy  indifference  of  mind 
on  the  other.  Apart  from  such  extraneous  difficulties, 
though,  there  must  still  have  been  the  histrionic  differ- 
ence: it  was  but  increased  by  circumstances,  its  springs 
were  deeper.  The  successful  actor  of  that  time  thought, 
wrongly  on  the  whole,  that  the  new  plays  did  not  give 
proper  scope  for  his  carefully  cultivated  technique,  but 
he  was  right  in  his  usually  unavowed  fear  that  their 
interpretation  did,  besides,  need  qualities  quite  without 
the  scope  of  any  training  he  had  had. 

Now  whether,  if  the  tradition  of  acting  had  remained 
quite  native,  its  exemplars  would  have  been  readier 
for  the  new  development  it  is,  of  course,  impossible  to 
say.     Hypothetical   argument  is  risky,   especially  in 


80  THE    EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

artistic  matters,  where  no  instance  even  comes  true  to 
type.  But  it  is  at  least  possible  that  actors  brought  up 
to  the  playing  of  "Caste";  taught  to  go,  if  not  to 
English  life  for  their  models,  at  least  to  English  fiction 
(if  Robertson  neglected  his  immediate  theatrical  for- 
bears he  at  least  had  not  read  Thackeray  for  nothing), 
and  accustomed  next  to  the  excellent  native  humours  of 
"Dandy  Dick,"  could  have  been  put  to  the  very  differ- 
ent fences  of  Galsworthy's  "Silver  Box"  without  fear 
of  refusal.  This  is  to  take  for  an  example  of  the  demand 
made  upon  the  actor  a  play  in  which  there  can  be  little 
suspicion  of  extraneous  influence.  As  a  matter  of  his- 
tory this  play  appeared  when  the  Ibsen  battle  had  been 
fought  out,  and  a  younger  generation  of  actors  faced 
it  with  equanimity.  But  who  would  say  that  a  com- 
pany got  together  ten  years  earlier  would  have  known 
what  to  do  with  it.^^  It  was  a  serious  play.  But  where 
would  they  have  found  in  it  the  stigmata  of  the  serious 
plays  they  then  knew,  the  emotional  crisis,  the  sce?ie  a 
faire,  the  ravellings  and  unravellings  of  plot.^^  With 
such  materials  they  had  learnt  how  to  make  certain 
arbitrary  effects.  In  "The  Silver  Box"  they  are  asked 
by  the  author  to  second  his  direct  observation  of  the 
most  commonplace  English  life,  to  "be,"  as  near  as 
may  be,  a  few  people  picked,  with  apparent  indifference, 
out  of  Bayswater,  out  of  the  London  streets;  and  never 
to  mind  whether  they  were,  as  actors,  effective  or 
attractive,  or  coidd  exhibit  any  one  of  the  superficial 
theatrical  virtues.  The  principle  one  attempts  to  de- 
duce would  be  something  like  this.  If  the  actor  be 
trained  to  deal  with  the  matter  of  observation  he  need 
fear  no  novelty.  He  may  attack  it  boldlj^  and  solve  its 
every  difficulty  by  the  light  of  his  own  experience. 
Put  an  English  company  to  an  English  play  and  nothing 
so  far  could  be  simpler.  But  we  may  take  luilikelier 
instances.  We  may  try  a  French  company  with  Ibsen, 
Italians  with  Shaw,  Americans  with  Benevente;  and 


THE    EDUCATIONAL  BASIS  81 

though  they  may  present  the  plays  with  a  superficial 
absurdity,  with  every  violence  of  translation  not  only 
into  a  strange  language  but  into  movement  and  fur- 
nishings still  further  from  anything  the  author  saw,  yet, 
because  they  have  searched  back  to  the  essential  com- 
mon relations  between  themselves,  the  play,  and  its 
author's  meaning,  they  will  be  able  to  bring  it  alive 
upon  the  stage.  But  actors  trained  only  in  the  arbitrary 
effects  of  a  manner  of  acting  will  stand  timid  and  hesi- 
tant before  any  new  matter  that  —  once  they  set  it 
working  —  may  bring  mere  manner  to  naught,  and 
leave  them  helpless  and  invalidate. 

Difference  of  technique  in  construction  and  dialogue 
between  the  new  plays  and  the  old  could  have  been 
left  out  of  account  beside  this  difficulty  of  the  different 
content.  It  was  at  this  that  the  actors  balked.  They 
were,  perhaps,  wise  in  their  theatrical  generation,  and 
we  need  discuss  that  part  of  the  business  no  further. 
Nor  does  it  really  matter  if  our  view  of  what  might 
have  been  is  a  tenable  one.  We  are  only  concerned  now 
with  the  undoubted  and  undoubtedly  unfortunate  re- 
sult of  the  breaking  of  the  histrionic  tradition.  It  was 
neither  a  very  old  nor  a  very  certain  tradition:  it  had 
been  distorted  and  weakened  already  by  extraneous  in- 
fluence. But,  for  all  that,  it  was  the  receptacle  of  much 
necessary  accomplishment  and  many  desirable  graces; 
and  first  its  refusal  of  service  to  the  new  school  of 
drama,  and  later  its  rejection  by  that  school,  have 
left  the  English  theatre  at  present  the  poorer.  It  was 
nonsense  to  say  that  any  duffer  could  act  Ibsen,  and 
Ibsen  has  in  consequence  been  rather  the  prey  of  the 
duffers  to  this  day.  It  was  equally  rash  to  assume 
that  sympathy  with  the  aims  of  the  new  dramatist  and 
a  better  understanding  of  his  matter  were  all  that  was 
necessary  to  the  performance  of  the  play.  But  that 
was  an  opinion  which  now  quite  fatally  tended  to  es- 
tablish itself,  not,  obviously  enough,  upon  the  accred- 


82  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

iting  of  a  new  sort  of  actor  —  who  could  hardly  expect 
to  rise  to  great  fame  upon  such  a  basis  —  but  upon  a 
certain  discrediting  of  the  old,  when  the  success  of  the 
new  dramatists,  or  more  properly  the  pervasion  of 
the  whole  theatre  by  their  influence  even  in  failure, 
forced  him  into  the  service.  He,  very  often,  did  not 
individually  fail,  for  it  became  the  amiable  critical  cus- 
tom to  credit  the  actors  at  the  expense  of  the  play  with 
making  the  best  of  a  bad  job.  But  his  technique  — 
when  it  was  all  he  possessed  —  tending  to  collapse 
under  him,  he  had  to  abandon  it  and  put  himself  on 
the  level  of  the  newcomers,  who  had  neither  any  of 
their  own  nor  any  use  for  his.  He  had,  in  fact,  to  go  to 
school  again  —  and  there  was  no  school!  It  was  not 
then  so  much  the  actors  who  were  discredited  as  —  far 
worse!  —  the  whole  art  of  acting,  which  has  fallen, 
and  remains  in  these  days,  most  sadly  in  the  dumps. 
How  else,  at  least,  to  explain  the  undoubted  impov- 
erishment of  English  acting  in  the  presence  of  as  un- 
doubted an  enrichment  of  English  drama. ^^ 

T.       J.    ,      The  admission  may  generously  be  made 
discredited       4i    4.    •    r    •  i      i        4.  e  xi  •  i* 

.    ,  that  individual  actors  01  this  generation 

acting  ^^  training  do  often  not  only  fulfil  but  em- 

bellish particular  parts  by  their  personal 
talent  and  attractiveness.  But  the  main  accusation 
must  be  answered — and  it  is  freely  made — that,  taken 
by  and  large,  the  present  lot  of  English-speaking 
actors  do  not  know  their  business.  Let  us  put  the 
matter  at  its  worst.  From  the  actor  of  small  parts 
little  is  asked  but  the  sheer  technique  of  expression; 
how  seldom  it  is  at  his  disposal!  A  hundred  excuses 
may  be  found,  but  the  fact  remains.  And  those  upon 
whom  the  main  burden  of  the  play  is  cast  are  often  in 
little  better  case.  They  may  have  a  more  sympathetic 
understanding  of  the  purpose  of  the  Avork  than  their 
forbears  of  tliirly  years  back  would  have  shown.  But, 
in  spite  of  this,  their  expression  of  it  is  fatally  clogged 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  83 

in  the  outflowing  by  a  voice  they  can't  manage,  a  face 
that  appears  to  need  moving  by  hand,  and  a  body  they 
hardly  dare  move  at  all,  unless  with  a  violence  which 
will  mask  its  lack  of  all  finer  articulation. 

It  is  between  these  two  stools,  then  —  of  a  technique 
outworn  and  discarded,  and  an  attempt  to  do  without 
any  technique  at  all  —  that  the  art  of  acting  has  now 
fallen.  It  has  fallen  to  dullness;  a  quite  unforgivable 
sin.  The  writers  and  producers  of  modern  comedies 
may  be  excused  for  begging  their  companies  "not  to 
act."  It  would  be  uncivil  to  explain  that  their  appeal 
in  its  fullness  means  "not  to  act  like  that."  Certain 
of  the  later  dramatists,  it  is  true,  impressed  by  the 
vast  possibilities  of  the  drama  and  their  own  contri- 
bution to  it,  but  a  little  contemptuous  of  the  theatre 
they  so  condescendingly  make  use  of,  are  blind  to  there 
being  any  alternative  to  the  "intelligent  reading," 
which  will,  they  hold,  at  least  give  their  play  its  naked, 
unhindered  chance.  But  the  art  of  acting  was  the 
beginning  of  drama.  Before  ever  the  literary  man  and 
his  manuscript  appeared  acting  was  there,  and  it  re- 
mains the  foundation  of  the  whole  affair.  And  to  ignore 
its  possibilities  and  to  decry  its  importance  is  to  wander 
into  that  blind  alley  which  leads  to  the  play  more 
fitted  for  the  study  than  the  stage  —  that  yacht  so 
perfectly  adapted  to  lying  in  the  harbour. 

No;  the  instinct  of  the  playgoer  is  right.  He  goes  to 
the  theatre  primarily  to  see  good  acting,  in  the  never- 
defeated  hope  of  being  carried  clean  off  his  feet  by  great 
acting.*     Failing  this,  he  can  perhaps  learn  to  make 

*  Et  voila 

Le  silence  rompu  qui  vole  en  mille  eclats! 

Le  public  s'abandonne  a  rimmense  rafale 

Qui  gronde  et  le  secoue!  ... 

Et  le  rire  au  galop  qui  traverse  la  salle 

Emporte  tout  ... 

Les  chagrins,  les  soucis 

Et  les  peines. 


84  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

more  of  a  good  play  by  reading  it  comfortably  at  home. 
He  demands  even  —  and  quite  rightly  —  a  certain  vir- 
tuosity of  performance;  and  when  he  misses  it,  being 
(tiresome  fellow!)  just  a  little  less  interested  in  the  play 
itself  than  the  author  has  been,  he  is  apt  to  vote  the 
whole  affair  either  portentous  and  dull,  or  trivial  and 
empty,  as  the  case  may  be.  It  is  upon  this  shoal  that  the 
new  drama  has  been  and  still  is  in  danger  of  being 
becalmed. 

It  is  a  quite  avoidable  catastrophe.  The  better 
the  play,  the  more  full  of  matter,  or  the  more  brilliantly 
evanescent  in  style,  the  less  excuse  has  its  performance 
for  being  dull.  But  the  more  does  it  need  acting;  not 
only  a  fuller  understanding,  but  a  greater  virtuosity  of 
interpretation. 

Since  the  old  virtuosity  was  found  not  to  avail,  what 
attempt  has  been  made  in  the  English-speaking  theatre 
to  cultivate  a  new?  Solvitur  amhulando 
The  need  jg  ^  good  motto,  no  doubt,  and  appro- 
for  a  new  prjate  enough  to  a  theatrical  system  in 
which  actors  start  their  career  and  are  ex- 
pected to  learn  what  they  can  of  their  art  by  "walking 
on."  And  how  expect  a  serious  study  of  principles 
from  a  hard-pressed  professional  theatre,  busily  adapt- 
ing itself  to  change  of  condition,  artistic  and  economic, 
living  artistically  from  hand  to  mouth,  and  compelled, 
above  all,  to  consider  appeai'ance,  to  shark  up  effects, 
to  make  a  success  of  the  moment  at  any  cost? 

When  the  break  of  tradition  c*<une  there  was  no  new 
school  to  supply  —  as  had  to  be  supplied,  from  funda- 
mentals up  and  on  —  the  new  need.  What  have  the 
present  dramatic  academies  been  doing?  One  should 
have  intimate  knowledge  of  their  working  to  speak  with 

Tu  comprenrls  bien  ceci? 

ComprcDfls  f|iic  c'cst  pour  <;a  qii'ils  viennent! 
A  ceux  qui  font  sourirc  on  nc  flit  pus  mcrci  .  .  . 
Deburau  (Act  IV  of  Sacha  Guitxy's  play)  praises  his  art 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  85 

entire  authority;  but,  judging  by  results,  not  much. 
One  doubts,  indeed,  whether  the  need  itself  has  yet 
been  precisely  formulated.  These  academies,  too,  are 
mostly,  with  their  obligation  to  earn  fees,  compelled  to 
supply  not  even  such  sort  of  study  as  the  professional 
theatre  might  find  upon  consideration  most  immedi- 
ately useful  in  its  recruits,  but  that  which  the  pupils 
themselves,  impatient  for  a  career,  suppose  will  help 
them  to  the  swiftest  successful  assault  upon  managerial 
favour.  And  even  the  American  universities,  where  the 
most  —  and  the  most  serious  —  co-operative  study  of 
drama  is  to  be  found,  devote  themselves  less  to  acting 
than  to  plays  and  playmaking,  and  are  driven  to  be 
(they  too!)  sadly  impatient  for  results. 

There  is  as  yet  no  general  recognition  that  modern 
drama  demands  a  technique  of  interpretation  or  could 
even  accommodate  a  virtuosity  all  its  own.  Taking  the 
first  at  second-hand,  it  turns  a  half-disdainful  back 
upon  the  very  possibility  of  the  second.  The  student  of 
acting  will  contentedly  approach  a  performance  of, 
say,  Hialmar  Ekdal,  bringing  to  bear  upon  it  the  same 
technical  equipment  that  he  has  cultivated  for  Romeo. 
And  although  the  actor  playing  old  Ekdal  will  know 
(one  hopes  he  will  know;  if  he  does  n't  he  will  soon 
discover  it,  much  to  the  play's  misfortune)  that  the 
virtuosity  which  makes  Sir  Peter  Teazle  charming  is 
so  out  of  place  in  Ibsen  as  to  be  merely  ridiculous,  this 
mostly  only  means,  alas,  that  he  timidly  shelters  himself 
within  the  part,  diffusing  from  it  a  respectable  dullness. 

Now  the  difference  in  the  technique  of  the  play- 
writing  is  so  obvious  as  almost  to  escape  comment. 
Shakespeare  and  Ibsen  wrote  with  pens,  wrote  dialogue, 
designed  it  for  living  actors,  and  there,  really,  all  tech- 
nical likeness  ends.  Is  it  enough,  then,  for  actors  to 
make  no  more  difference  in  their  technical  approach  to 
the  plays'  interpretation  than  is  unescapably  dictated 
by  the  fact  that  in  one  case  strange  garments  must  be 


86  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

swaggered  in  and  blank  verse  spouted,  while  in  another 
one  wears  coats  and  trousers  and  speaks  prose;  is  Sheri- 
dan's attitude  to  the  world  amply  defined  if  a  man  only- 
carries  a  cane  and  a  snuff-box? 

In  the  last  analysis,  of  course,  Romeo  and  Hialmar 
Ekdal  (to  contrast  the  two  only)  are  sentient  human 
beings  both,  and  we  have  already  admitted  that  the 
essential  thing  is  to  go  back  to  the  common  point  of 
contact  with  real  life,  that  it  matters  far  less  what 
diverse  paths  may  be  travelled  away  from  it.  And  if, 
for  the  covering  of  the  long  distance  between  concep- 
tion of  character  and  elaboration  of  performance,  the 
actor  has  only  a  Shakespearean  technique  available, 
he  must  use  it:  it  is  absurd  to  expect  any  man  to  dis- 
card knowledge  —  even  inappropriate  knowledge  —  for 
ignorance.  Moreover,  he  will  use  it.  For  however 
much  we  may  argue  for  Ibsen  underacted  rather  than 
Ibsen  wronglj'^  acted,  he  has  the  responsibilities  of  per- 
formance to  face.  He  is  in  honour  bound  to  give  the 
best  of  hhnself  to  the  audience,  as  well  as  the  slice  of 
Ibsen  carved  for  his  use.  He  will  not,  if  he  has  any 
proper  pride,  stand  there  empty  of  attraction,  be  driven 
back  upon  that  dullness  which  is  to  him  the  deepest 
artistic  damnation. 

The  worst,  perhaps,  of  the  use  of  Shakespearean 
technique  in  this  connection,  and  the  reason,  besides, 
why  the  actor  may  be  so  blithely  ready  to  use  it,  is 
that  it  is  venerable  enough  to  have  acquired  an  absolute 
independence  of  its  derivative.  But  in  this  both  its 
own  purpose  is  falsified  and  it  remains  curiously  in- 
appropriate to  any  other.  The  first  thing  needful  for 
the  building  up  of  a  technique  of  modern  drama  is  to 
sort  out  and  restore  to  their  proi)cr  use  the  scrai)s  and 
ends  of  method,  once,  no  doubt,  living  growth,  but  now 
detached,  dr\%  and  applied  hai)hazard  according  to  the 
taste  and  fancy  of  the  actor.  Incidentally,  what  is 
usually  called  the  Shakespearean  tradition  is  not  Shakes- 


THE   EDUCATIONAL  BASIS  87 

pearean  at  all,  and  with  a  continuance  of  the  now 
happily  revived  study  of  the  obligations  of  Elizabethan 
stagecraft  it  will,  it  may  be  hoped,  disappear.  The 
Sheridan  technique  and  the  Robertson  technique  it 
should  not  be  hard  to  put  in  their  places.  Then  the 
ground  will  be  fairly  clear  and  it  will  be  possible  to 
think  unencumberedly  of  the  art  of  acting  in  terms  of 
a  drama  which  differs  profoundly  in  matter  and  very 
eminently  in  method  even  from  its  nearer  ascendants. 
The  interpreters  must  follow  the  lines  the  creators  have 
travelled.  If  Shakespeare  wrote  rhetorically,  wove  his 
effects  out  of  strands  of  unrepressed  individual  emotion, 
if  Sheridan  cared  greatly  for  the  set  of  his  prose,  Rob- 
ertson for  sentiment,  Pinero  in  his  farces  for  well- 
bitten  comic  figures,  if  the  work  of  Ibsen  is  most 
strongly  marked  by  the  involute  process  of  revelation 
of  character,  that  of  Tchekov  by  the  way  in  which  his 
men  and  women  are  made  to  seem  less  like  independent 
human  beings  than  reflections  in  the  depths  of  the 
circumstance  of  his  plays  —  these  traits  of  each  dra- 
matist mould  and  pervade  his  work  and  should  dictate 
a  related  method  for  its  interpretation.  All  acting  is 
interpretation;  it  can  have  no  absolute  value  of  its 
own.  How  much  then  of  the  personal  praise  and 
blame  that  is  aimed  at  actors  falls  beside  the  mark 
when  their  art  has  not  been  looked  at  in  its  due  relation 
to  the  play!  And  here  even  professional  critics  fail  us 
as  a  rule,  omissively.  To  the  mere  casual  public  the 
play  may  be  the  actor's  own.  But  the  critic  is  too  apt 
to  give  it  his  attention  to  the  exclusion,  it  would  seem, 
of  any  serious  effort  to  appreciate  at  all  the  actor's 
share  in  its  completion. 

It  is  ill  girding  at  unfortunate  beings  who, 
most   of    them,   most    of  the  time,  are   faced        ... 
with    the    impossible   demand    for   an   adjust- 
ment in   a  few  paragraphs  of  cold   print  of  the   fe- 
verish, factitious,  often  entirely  fictitious  enthusiasm 


88  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

of  the  first  night  of  a  play.  Nine  times  out  of  ten 
the  play  itself  cannot  stand  up  to  the  ordeal  of  a  con- 
secutive description,  much  less  of  an  analysis.  Even 
if  it  can,  more  especially  when  it  can,  are  these  the 
conditions  to  which  any  ordinary  critic  can  credit- 
ably respond  .f*  There  would  be  excuses  enough,  under 
such  circumstances,  for  almost  anything  he  might  say 
or  leave  unsaid.  But  it  is  a  pity  that  he  finds  it  as  a 
rule  easier  to  deal  with  the  play  itself  at  sufficient 
length,  and  so  is  content  to  let  its  acting  go  with  a 
kindly,  vague  ineptitude  of  praise  or  blame.  The  play, 
of  course,  has  at  least  its  story,  and  by  sticking  to  that 
he  need  neither  involve  himself  nor  trouble  his  readers 
with  technical  detail.  Were  he  to  be  either  precise  or 
lengthy  about  the  acting  he  would  be  straying,  he  may 
think,  upon  very  slippery  ground.  But  the  flat  truth, 
one  fears,  is  that  the  average  critic  knows  little  or 
nothing  of  acting  as  an  art.  Not  that  he  is  alone  in 
his  ignorance.  The  average  audience  knows  less  and 
cares  hardly  at  all,  demands  sensation,  the  stirring  to 
tears  or  laughter;  by  what  means  effected  is  no  matter. 
But  what  stimulus,  then,  is  it  to  an  actor  to  appear 
before  judges,  the  expertest  of  whom  can  hardly  tell, 
so  to  speak,  a  bad  part  from  a  good  performance, 
when,  condemned  to  the  one  —  as  all  actors  must  be 
from  time  to  time  —  he  may  still  be  giving  the  other. 
Whether  it  is  this  misprision,  or  the  contrasting  gush 
of  easy  praise  —  echoed  from  the  unthinking  enthu- 
siasm of  an  audience,  for  the  carrying  off,  sometimes  by 
sheer  impudence  and  vitality,  of  something  so  obviously 
effective  as  to  be  in  the  cant  phrase  actor  (it  should 
usually  be  actress)  proof  —  that  has  a  more  deleterious 
effect  upon  the  art  of  acting  is  a  question.  It  has  become 
for  actors  an  unimportant  question  in  view  of  the  conclu- 
sion reached  l)y  most  of  tliem  with  experience  of  the 
rough  and  smooth  of  their  work,  that  as  they  never 
can  count  upon  discrimination  they  had  better  measure 


THE    EDUCATIONAL    BASIS  89 

the  worth  of  these  notices  altogether  in  terms  of  adver- 
tisement, and  the  parts  that  they  play,  therefore,  by 
the  standard  of  an  obvious  effectiveness.  But  for  us,  and 
for  the  art's  sake,  this  is  an  unhappy  and  a  deleterious 
conclusion.  All  parts,  and  some  of  the  best  parts,  are 
not  —  in  this  headline  and  poster  sense  —  effective, 
and  any  effort  by  the  dramatist  or  actor  to  make  them 
so  must  be  wholly  misdirected.  But  the  actor  will  be 
caught  by  a  conscientious  panic  that  he  is  not  "doing 
his  best  to  make  the  thing  go,"  and  the  effort  he  then 
makes  has  only  to  be  shameless  enough  to  be  greeted, 
as  often  as  not,  with  applause.  Yet  again,  what  en- 
couragement is  it  to  a  man  to  cultivate  the  niceties  of 
restraint  and  delicate  workmanship  if,  by  the  end  of 
his  career,  no  one  but  himself  and  a  few  of  his  colleagues 
are  to  be  the  wiser  of  his  achievement.'^  Few  things  can 
debauch  an  art  so  much  as  the  lack  of  any  decent  stand- 
ard of  public  taste.  To  every  sincere  and  self-respect- 
ing artist  each  new  effort  is  a  new  adventure,  and  it  is 
asking  much  of  an  actor  to  keep  his  aim  and  his  courage 
high  if  his  audience  indiscriminately  applauds  better 
and  worse,  and  often,  indeed,  prefers  the  worse  to  the 
better.  His  chance  of  fame  is  in  the  present  only,  the 
temptation  to  "live  to  please"  is  doubly  hard,  for  he 
leaves  no  score,  nor  canvas,  nor  printed  book  by  which 
posterity  may  justify  his  own  severer,  better  judgment 
of  his  work. 

There  have  been  admirable  critics  of  acting,  from 
Fielding,  Lamb,  and  Hazlitt  onwards,  and  in  their  dis- 
criminating pages  the  quick  mortality  of  the  art  has 
for  some  few  outstanding  names  been  stayed.  And  if 
to-day  we  were  concerned  only  with  the  actor's  allow- 
able ambition  to  leave  some  less  fading  record  of  his 
achievements  behind  him  than  the  hearsay  of  popu- 
larity we  might  look  for  and  plan  under  better  con- 
ditions than  those  of  current  criticism,  some  recultiva- 
tion  of  the  sensitive,  picturesque  writing  which  does 


90  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

catch  for  us  a  little  of  the  passing  glamour,  helps  us  to 
reweave  something  of  the  personal  spell,   which  the 
fine  actor  once  cast  upon  his  audience.    But  we  want 
not  reminiscent  value,  but  an  immediate  critical  stimu- 
lus.    A  conspiracy  between  critics  and  actors  to  play 
into  each  other's  hands  in  terms  of  technical  achieve- 
ment and  appreciation  to  the  confounding  of  the  igno- 
rant would  be  no  more  than  amusing.    For  the  circle  of 
appeal  and  appreciation  in  which  actors  and  audience, 
critical  and  uncritical  alike,  revolve  is  a  natural  one. 
It  is  within  its  revolution  that  the  art  of  the  theatre  is 
immediately  enriched.     Granted  a  good  audience,  good 
acting  of  a  sort  must  result.    The  actor  simply   cannot 
get  on  at  all  unless  (we  now  speak  of  him  generically) 
he  can  make  himself  understood  and  appreciated  as  he 
goes.     By  a  process  of  trial  and  error,  then,  he  would 
be  bound  to  approximate  his  work  to  the  expectations 
of  his  audience,  if  they,  for  their  part,  both  could  and 
would  take  the  trouble  to  register  and  enforce  them. 
If  this  ideal  relation  could  be  brought  into  existence,  it 
would  be  within  it  — -  w^ithin  this  circle  of  immediate 
reactions  —  that  all  education  in  acting,  as  apart  from 
the  accomplishments   of  the   actor,   could  be  let  lie. 
And,  once  get  it  going,   once  the  magic  circle  were 
formed,   the  process   woidd   not  be  so   impossible  of 
practice  as  the  attractiveness  of  the  theory  might  lead 
one  to  suppose.     But  intelligent  and  responsible  con- 
nection between  the  three  parties  —  between  drama- 
tist, actors,  and  audience  —  having  been  so  wantonly 
broken,  there  needs  some  external  stud3%  some  grind- 
ing at  principles,  and  a  deal  of  practising,  before  they 
can  be  set  up  again.    In  other  words,  we  all  need  —  not 
only  actors,  but  dramatist,  yes,  and  audience  as  well, 
if  a  plan  comprehending  us  all  can  be  devised  —  to  go 
to  school  again,  to  take  a  litile  trouble  over  the  matter, 
before  we  can  count  upon  this  art  of  the  drama  yield- 
ing us  in  its    completeness   and  complexity  pleasure 


THE    EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  91 

and  profit  as  well.  But  it  must  be  to  a  school  ranging 
wider  in  the  scope  of  its  study  and  plumbing  deeper 
than  does  any  theatrical  academy  of  to-day.* 

Consider  yet  again  the  disabilities  un- 
der which  almost  every  school  of  the  ^^® 
theatre  now  labours.  They  are  filled  with  ^/gchoor 
young  women  and  men  feverishly  occu- 
pied, as  if  training  for  a  race;  competitive,  keen  on 
accomplishment.  The  work,  too,  such  as  it  is,  is  al- 
ways disbalanced  by  the  women  outnumbering  the 
men.  As  careers  for  men  go  the  actor's  is  not  very 
desirable,  and  so  —  but  for  the  few  who  do  feel  an 
irresistible  call,  or  whom  circumstances  tend  to  push 
early  in  —  the  supply  is  kept  up  by  drafts  of  recruits  at 
various  stages  of  disillusionment  in  the  discovery  of 
their  incompetence  for  other  vocations.  Not  the  best 
field  of  cultivation  to  begin  with!  Things  are  better, 
no  doubt,  in  this  respect  than  they  were.  By  the 
traditional  romantic  course  of  running  away  from  home 
was  produced  —  out  of  the  ensuing  rough  and  tumble 
—  some  fine,  full-blooded  acting  in  those  that  had  the 
sturdiness  to  survive;  just  as  the  daring  of  running 
ofT  to  sea  can  be  proved  to  have  furnished  the  world 
by  the  same  process  with  some  notable  seamen  —  and 
pirates.  Things  were  at  their  worst,  rather,  when  the 
theatre,  having  acquired  a  sort  of  gentility,  began  to  be 
looked  on  as  the  home  of  soft  jobs,  and,  by  friends  and 
relations  of  the  attractive  wastrel  who  sought  refuge 
there,  as  a  not  too  reprehensible  foster-mother.  They 
would  even  manage  to  add  a  flavour  of  humorous  pride 
to  their  protesting  remark  that  "Harry  had  gone  on 
the  stage."  The  very  existence  of  a  school  or  two,  in 
lieu  of  the  vanished  rough  and  tumble,  the  implied 
obligation  to  take  the  thing  seriously,  is  a  great  im- 
provement.   But  they  still  specialize  far  too  narrowly. 

*  I  write  of  England,  but  I  think  that  no  such  school  as  I  have  in 
mind  does  exist  anywhere. 


92  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

For  it  is  noticeable  that  when  an  attraction  to  drama 
declares  itself  and  is  responded  to  in  the  course  of  a 
man's  general  education  his  particular  interest  is  often 
less  in  acting  than  in  the  writing  or  producing  of  plays, 
or  even  —  for  all  that  the  subject  seems  a  dull  one  — 
in  the  management  of  the  theatre  generally.  Take  a 
stage-struck  young  man  down  from  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge, and  it  is  odds  that  he  sees  himself  as  Romeo. 
Find  a  man  who  has  been  getting  his  teeth  into  the 
dramatic  courses  (it  is  true  they  are  called  courses  in 
dramatic  literature)  at  Yale  or  Harvard,  or  working 
still  more  at  large  in  some  college  further  west,  and  for 
him  a  career  in  the  theatre  will  be  a  thing  of  much 
wider  comprehension.*  To  such  a  man,  it  is  clear,  the 
present  sort  of  theatre  school,  with  its  nothing  but 
teaching  of  actor's  accomplishments,  can  have  little  or 
no  attraction.  And  its  loss  of  him  —  be  this  noted  —  is 
the  greater. 

The  attraction  of  the  theatre  as  a  career  for  women, 
pre-eminent  once,  for  economic  reasons  at  least,  as  it 

rr,  was  one  of  the  few  in  which  they  worked 

ine  army  ,.,  ..,  ,         •^  ^ 

of  women  ?"  ^^^  equality  with  men,  is  now  suffer- 
ing by  comparison  with  the  many  others 
opening  out  to  them.  It  is  in  any  case  more  of  a 
gamble  for  women  than  for  men.  They  may  win  suc- 
cess earlier,  but  only  to  lose  it  the  sooner.  If  a  pretty 
girl  looks  upon  it  as  a  preliminary  canter  which  she 
means  to  abandon  for  marriage  at  the  first  good  oppor- 
tunity, the  convenience  is  sometimes  a  double  one  — 
to  her  and  to  the  theatre  that  may  be  glad  to  make  use 
of  her  while  her  prettiness  lasts.  But  for  women  who 
stay  in  the  race  there  is  less  demand  —  if  competence 
is  all  their  attainment  —  than  for  men.f     Many  col- 

I  once  met  a  man  who  liad  been  studying  drama  solely  as  a 
preliminary  to  becoming  a  dramatic  critic.  lie  said  he  thonglit  it 
a  reasonable  tiling  to  do! 

t  Developments  of  the  modern  drama  —  and  the  advent  of  the 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  93 

lege  women,  both  in  England  and  America,  are  studying 
drama  nowadays  for  the  use  it  may  be  to  them  in  teach- 
ing, or  in  the  organizing  of  social  life  in  villages  and 
factory  communities;  the  up-to-date  development  of 
district  visiting.  And  for  this,  no  doubt,  the  theatre 
school,  even  at  present,  could  be  of  use  if  its  curricu- 
lum were  so  adjusted.  Moreover,  such  a  class  of  stu- 
dents might  well  be  a  strength  which  would  a  little 
counterbalance  that  other,  the  obvious  weakness  of 
every  dramatic  academy,  the  crowd  of  stage-struck 
young  ladies  that  beset  it,  possessed  by  that  shallow 
enthusiasm  which  is  the  bane  of  all  art,  and  to  the  as- 
saults of  which  the  poor  theatre  is  peculiarly  liable. 
Nothing  keeps  them  out,  not  the  raising  of  fees;  their 
parents,  to  be  rid  of  their  restlessness,  thankfully  accede 
to  any  such  demand.  Entrance  examinations  do  not 
floor  them.  They  have  the  abounding,  crude  vitality 
which  carries  them  lightly  over  such  obstacles;  and,  being 
admitted,  they  mount  the  first  steps  of  the  student's  lad- 
der with  facility  —  oh,  fatal  facility !  The  casual  looker- 
on  at  this  phase  would  really  think  that  something  was 
to  come  of  it  all.  But  then  —  to  change  the  metaphor, 
as  they,  at  this  point,  seem  to  change  —  like  locusts, 
they  begin  to  occupy  the  land  only  to  feed  on  it.  They 
learn,  and  keep  on  learning,  and  what  they  do  is  argu- 
ably good  enough,  if  argument  made  good  art.  But  all 
the  while  it  is  they,  more  than  any,  that  exhaust  the 
resource  of  the  classes  and  the  vitality  of  the  teachers, 
till  they  pass  on  (crowds  of  their  like  still  to  follow  them) 
and  pass  out  to  good  luck  or  bad,  a  sham  career,  a  hope- 
less struggle,  happily  sometimes  to  marriage  and  cheer- 
woman  dramatist  —  may  alter  this.  But  it  is  curious  how  the  pro- 
portion of  the  sexes  in  the  cast  of  a  modern  play  tends  to  abide  not 
by  the  social  realities  but  by  the  transitions  of  the  theatre  built  up 
for  the  drama  of  heroic  action.  Any  play  of  sheer  action  it  is  true 
still  calls  naturally  for  more  men  than  women.  Tradition  has 
something  to  do  with  the  male  overplus,  for  all  that. 


94  THE   EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

ful,  chatty  reminiscence  of  the  time  they  studied  for 
the  stage,  or  sadly  to  some  greyer  industry  and  the 
bitterness  of  regret. 

There  is  no  full  escape,  of  course,  from  this  sort  of 
student  in  any  art  or  any  profession.  Professions,  in- 
deed, seem  quite  contentedly  to  absorb  them;  for  they 
work  well  to  rule.  And  it  is  true  that  out  of  any  such 
crowd  can  be  picked  a  real  artist  or  two.  But  then  the 
teachers  must  try  to  be  fair  to  the  others,  who  work 
only  the  harder  when  their  secret  heart  begins  to  tell 
them  —  for  all  the  approbation  they  so  earnestly  seek 
for  and  logicall}'^  almost  compel  —  that  it  is  all  in  vain. 
It  is  hard  to  withhold  approbation.  And  what  argu- 
able reasons  can  one  give  for  saying  in  each  case:  "Here 
craftsmanship  should  end.  Now  artistry  must  begin"? 
We  cannot  all  have  genius.  Has  the  theatre  no  place 
for  the  craftsman  .f^  How  manj^  tried  performers  —  with 
not  even  so  much  claim  on  public  attention  —  encum- 
ber it  successfully.  Thus  they  could  argue,  in  return, 
these  well-meaning  ones,  even  when  driven  to  admit 
that  devoted  study  has  brought  them  only  to  the 
knowledge  of  what  they  ought  to  be  able  to  do  and  the 
realization  of  their  failure  to  achieve  it. 

Now  in  a  school  with  a  wider  intention  than  the 
training  of  actors  they  would  be  in  a  very  different 
and  a  very  much  better  case.  The  drama, 
The  ,  jjj  some  form  or  other,  is  sure  to  be  made 
sional  ^  '  ^  ^'^^^  ^^  ^^^  scheme  of  social  welfare  (so- 
student  called).      Here,   then,   would   be   a   legiti- 

mate course  of  study  for  any  school  of  the 
theatre  to  provide,  and  a  useful  by-path  along  which 
those  in  whom  industry  is  the  highest  artistic  virtue 
might  travel  to  fairly  fruitful  careers. 

But  a  widening  of  the  school's  intention  would  be 
for  Ihe  good  of  any  potential  actor,  even  were  he  (or 
she)  marked  out  by  genius  for  the  straightest  cut  to 
popular  recognition  and  success.    One  of  the  curses  of 


THE   EDUCATIONAL   BASIS  95 

the  professional  theatre  is  the  accident  of  social  isola- 
tion forced  upon  it,  not  any  longer  by  prejudice,  but 
by  the  simple  fact  that  its  work-time  is  other  men's 
play-time,  and  vice  versa.  The  need  and  the  means  of 
an  escape  from  this  we  are  to  argue  in  a  closer  connec- 
tion, but  the  preliminary  isolation  of  studentship  is  as 
great  an  evil.  And  now  we  have  reached  the  point 
where  the  interests  of  the  actor  noticeably  coincide 
with  those  of  the  public  in  the  theatre  as  a  whole.  The 
problem  of  his  education  is  the  doubled  and  divided 
one  both  of  catching  him  young  enough  for  the  elements 
of  his  art  to  be  learned  and  —  one  could  comprehensi- 
bly say,  forgotten,*  but  explanatorily  —  so  absorbed 
that  he  can  bring  a  freed  mind  to  its  larger  aspects;  and 
at  the  same  time  to  keep  him  fellowed  with  those  to 
whom  this  shadow  of  life  is  never  to  become  substance; 
those,  they  will  be  —  this  is  the  importance  of  the 
matter  for  him  —  whose  lives,  opinions,  and  feelings  he 
is  to  understand  and  interpret.  They,  on  the  other 
hand  —  and  here  is  the  coincidence  of  interest  —  can 
find,  we  are  to  argue,  an  educational  use  in  the  drama 
that  will  later  develop,  incidentally,  into  a  deeper 
pleasure  in  it.  And  the  drama  itself,  one  would  say, 
cannot  fail  to  be  enriched  and  strengthened  by  an  in- 
fusion of  new  blood  and  by  the  demand  made  of  it  for 
wider  service. 

At  this  point,  then,  our  grumbling  at  schools  of  the 
theatre  had  better  give  place  to  castle-building  for  the 
theatre  as  school. 

*  To  say  to  a  young  actor  of  an  old  one  "He  has  forgotten 
more  than  you  have  ever  learnt"  is  illuminating  and  often  salutary. 


Chapter   III 
The  Plan  of  the  Theatre  as  School 

CASTLE-BUILDING  it  had  better  be,  and  from 
foundations  up.  One  could  plan  for  the  de- 
velopment of  work  already  in  being,  and  in 
practice  no  doubt,  and  for  purposes  of  experiment, 
some  such  nucleus  would  be  helpful.  One  could  both 
devise  and  complete  a  fine  new  institution  suited  to  a 
small  community  making  limited  demands.  But  it  will 
be  more  to  our  purpose  to  imagine  in  broad  outline  a 
theatre  as  school,  fulfilling  its  widest  mission  under  the 
most  exacting  circumstances  and  to  beg  the  question  of 
how  it  could  be  brought  into  being.  Details  will  give 
verisimilitude,  and  they  are  half  the  fun  of  castle- 
building. 

One    sees    this     theatre     as    school  —  to    attempt 
first  a  parallel  —  in  its  status  and  outward  relations, 
as    one    of    those    great    specialist    schools 
,®  .,         which    form    part    of    the    already     very 
scope  catholic  University  of  London.*    Its  inter- 

nal organization  would  be,  one  cannot  deny, 
both  complex  and  costly.  And  if  one  says,  to  begin  with, 
that  the  building  containing  it  should  accommodate 
two  fully  equipped  and  actively  working  professional 
playhouses,  that  might  be  enough  to  make  most 
people,  most  practical  educationalists  certainly,  dis- 
miss the  whole  project  as  Utopian.  But  it  can,  I 
think,  be  demonstrated  that  this  particular  complexity 
is  more  apparent  than  real,  and  would  be  an  economy 
rather  than  an  extravagance.  Such  a  theatre  would 
look  to  produce  plays  with  large  casts  and  small;  plays, 
moreover,  that  might  appeal  either  to  large  or  small 
sections  of  the  public.    It  is  clearly  economical  to  fit  a 

*  Such,  for  instance,  as  the  London  School  of  Economics,  or  the 
L.C.C.  School  of  Architecture  in  Southampton  Row. 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL  97 

small  audience  into  a  small  auditorium;  it  is  extrava- 
gant —  when,  as  may  be,  plays  of  small  casts  are 
making  the  larger  appeal  —  to  leave  the  overplus  of 
actors  unoccupied.  Besides  this,  the  scope  of  the  study 
and  its  exemplifying,  the  call,  for  instance,  for  student 
performances,  would  easily  burst  the  bounds  of  one 
playhouse.  The  carrying  on  of  school-work  and  theatre- 
work  under  one  roof  would  probably  be  a  physical 
convenience,*  and  its  amalgamation  in  one  educational 
plan  is  a  fundamental  point  of  the  scheme.  The  rest 
of  the  building  equipment  would  be  classrooms,  lecture 
theatres  —  much  the  same,  indeed,  as  that  needed  for 
any  other  sort  of  specialized  education. 

Let  us  at  once  clear  the  ground  of  one  just  possible 
misconception,  if  the  remark  that  potential  actors  are 
better  caught  young  should  give  rise  to  it. 

The   theatre   as    school   would  not   be   a       ,    ...    , 
1         p        1-11  A  n    1  1  11        aamittea. 

place  tor  children.    All  that  they  need  be 

taught  in  this  kind  can  be  better  taught  here  to  their 
teachers.  No  sort  of  study  would  be  provided  suit- 
able to  any  boy  or  girl  under  fifteen.  Indeed,  even 
for  those  of  university  age  —  as  the  great  majority  of 
students  would  probably  be  —  the  curriculum  must 
deliberately  discourage  any  neglect  of  more  general 
education.  Close  specialization  should  in  any  case 
be  in  the  nature  of  post-graduate  work.  And  two 
hours  a  day  in  the  less  specialized  classes  would  be  an 
ample  enough  beginning,  f  For  those  already  deter- 
mined upon  the  theatre  as  a  career  it,  of  course,  would 
not  seem  so.     They  would  not  find  it  a  sufficiently 

*  If  it  were  not,  there  would  be  less  virtue  in  the  provision  of  a 
single  containing  buUding.  And  in  London,  of  course,  there  are 
always  difficulties  in  securing  large  and  convenient  sites. 

t  I  am  aware  of  the  practical  difficulties,  especially  in  such  a 
place  as  London,  of  combming  varying  studies  in  various  build- 
ings. But  this  is  a  more  general  problem,  in  any  solution  of  which 
the  theatre  as  school  would  share. 


98  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

swift  test  of  their  powers  to  excel.  And  no  doubt  the 
school  would  drift  into  admitting  anyone  over  seven- 
teen or  eighteen  to  a  full  course  of  study  at  the  start. 
But  it  should  be  discouraging  to  them  upon  this  issue 
even  in  their  own  interests.  The  swift  test — even  of 
such  an  apparently  easily  to  be  discerned  natural  gift 
as  the  dramatic  faculty  —  is  misleading.  Slow  develop- 
ment strengthens  it  and  deepens  the  strength.  Inci- 
dentally^, those  parents  and  guardians  with  intractable 
children  bent  upon  "going  on  the  stage"  would  find 
in  this  slowly  widening  opening  for  study  a  useful 
compromise  with  their  own  dutiful  refusal.  Such  an 
exiguous  beginning  might  lack  continuance  and  not  be 
a  serious  waste  of  time  for  the  pupil,  nor  —  a  more  im- 
portant matter  —  for  the  school.  And  this  process  of 
discouragement,  with  its  implication  of  other  interests 
to  be  reconciled,  and  the  response  to  it  would  help  to 
provide,  incidentally,  the  general  educational  test  that 
the  school  should  demand  from  its  novices. 

Let  us  reiterate,  indeed,  that  though  the  school  must 
specialize,  even  to  the  extent  of  directing  all  its  plans 
of  study  towards  the  culminating  point  of 
1  e  Droaa       ^j^^  ^^^  production  of  a  fine  play,  yet  its 
base  of  the        ,.  ..       .,  i-i 

^Qj.jj  claim  to  recognition  is  that  not  only  is  the 

base  of  the  pyramid  to  be  broadly  educa- 
tional, but  that,  at  any  stage  of  the  building,  work  of 
quite  general  usefulness  may  be  found.  The  base, 
indeed,  would  be  broad  beyond  the  functions  of  the 
school;  for  all  study  would  begin  upon  the  supposition 
that  much  preliminary  work  had  been  done  in  earlier 
schooldays,  from  kindergarten  onwards.  A  suppo- 
sition of  the  sort  would  hold  true  were  the  school 
starting  fully  found  to-morrow.  Not  a  child  nowadays 
but  is  taught  (as  we  have  noted)  some  form  of  self- 
expression  —  elocution,  singing,  dancing,  or  the  like. 
But  it  will  be,  of  course,  more  satisfactorily  true  after 
the  schoors  own  teaching  has  filtered  down  through 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL        99 

students  become  teachers  and  has  spread  in  wide 
circles  to  primary  teaching  of  all  sorts. 

The  first  steps,  then,  in  specialization  would  be  a 
repetition,  or  rather  a  reinforcement,  of  work  already 
done  in  a  looser,  more  general  way;  it  would  be  a  pro- 
fessional stiffening  of  the  standard.  It  would  be  test 
work,  the  more  physical  side  of  it,  and  designed 
(once  again)  for  purposes  of  dis-couragement.  We  may 
imagine,  for  instance,  a  student  who  had  had  some 
general  training  in  gesture  plunged  at  once  into  the  diffi- 
culties of  an  equivalent  of  the  "Commedia  dell'  Arte"; 
or  one  that  had  studied  diction  put  to  read  a  passage 
of  prose  or  verse  in  twenty  different  ways,  and  asked 
to  pitch  upon  notes  in  his  voice  with  the  absolute 
accuracy  with  which  they  can  be  tapped  on  the 
piano.  We  may  also  suppose  that  when  the  effect 
of  the  school's  work  has  filtered  down  into  general 
education  the  co-operative  study  of  plays  will  be  find- 
ing, in  a  simple  form,  a  place  in  most  classes  for  boys 
and  girls  of  fourteen  to  sixteen.  In  our  theatre  as 
school  the  students  will  find  themselves  faced  at  the 
beginning  with  various  elaborations  of  this,  for  under 
one  form  and  another  it  is  this  co-operative  study 
which  must  form  the  backbone  of  the  school's  work; 
and  its  justification,  therefore,  must  be  the  backbone 
of  the  school's  whole  scheme.  To  its  consideration, 
then,  we  will  return  later  at  some  length. 

Then  there  will  be  the  productions  of  the  two  full- 
fledged  playhouses  which  are  conceived  to  be  an  integral 
part  of  the  institution.  It  may  seem  paradoxical  to 
rank  these  as  student  work;  and  certainly  the  general 
public,  paying  for  its  seats  and  enjoying  the  perform- 
ances as  it  would  those  of  any  other  theatres,  will  not 
trouble  to  think  of  them  in  that  way.  But  the  produc- 
tions will  truly  be  —  and  be  the  better  for  being  —  the 
fine  flower  of  the  study,  or  —  to  return  to  a  former  met- 
aphor —  the  apex  of  the  pyramid  of  the  school 's  work. 


100         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

And  to  sum  up  the  school's  general  policy:  it  must 
make  the  sweep  of  its  studies  as  comprehensive  as 
possible,  must  hold  back  the  young  men  and  women 
who  are  making  the  theatre  a  career,  and  compel  them, 
within  reason,  to  obtain  some  mastery  of  their  art  as  a 
whole;  it  must  cater  for  the  student  that  seeks  intensive 
knowledge  in  but  one  or  two  directions,  by  keeping  its 
sectional  standards  high,  by  providing  opportunity, 
moreover,  for  actual  research;  and,  finally  and  most 
importantly,  it  must  see  that  the  study  in  all  its 
branches  is  generally  educational,  and  is  as  much  in 
immediate  relation  to  the  ordinary  cultural  needs  of 
men  and  women  as  the  drama  should  be  in  relation  to 
their  imaginative  lives. 

One  of  the  school's  chief  difficulties  would  no  doubt 
be  with  young  people  who,  if  they  could  not  secure  an 
express  passage  through  its  every  grade  and  depart- 
ment, would  then  want  to  narrow  their  studies  to  the 
one  or  other  branch  of  the  art  on  which  their  hearts 
were  set.  It  is  a  perennial  trouble  with  the  drama  that 
what  for  other  arts  might  be  but  simple  devotion  be- 
comes in  most  people  caught  by  its  lure  sheer  mania, 
nothing  less.  One  could  unkindly  attribute  this  to  the 
passion  for  self-expression,  self-glorification,  of  which, 
to  the  novice,  the  art  of  acting  largely  consists,  were  it 
not  that  the  would-be  playwright,  the  producer,  even 
the  would-be  manager,  is  apt  to  become  almost  as  un- 
balanced. Perhaps  the  drama  and  all  about  it  is  in  its 
very  nature  an  irrational  occupation,  to  be  pursued 
only  under  the  stress  of  emotion  and  illusion  —  a  sort 
of  elaborate  dervish-dancing.  Perhaps  all  that  rational- 
ized study  can  do  is,  by  dispelling  the  illusion,  to  damp 
the  emotion  and  impoverish  the  product.  One  does 
observe  in  the  careers  of  some  actors  a  continuing 
process  which  might  be  so  ex])lained.  First  has  come  a 
quick  physical  and  emotional  adjustment  to  their  work; 
they  "find  themselves"  as  it  is  called.    Then  this  is 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       101 

duly  followed  by  a  hardening  into  conscious  method 
when  they  have  found  themselves  —  out !  Let  them 
be  thankful  that,  if  the  public  is  slower  to  appreciate 
the  first  part  of  the  process  than  they  could  wish,  it 
is  slower  still  to  share  in  the  second.  Is  the  rational 
study  of  the  dramatic  art  better  then  left  alone?  Had 
its  development  better  be  confined  to  some  training  in 
gymnastics  and  to  the  stimulus  of  youthful  high  spirits, 
or,  youth  failing,  to  reliance,  when  all  else  fails  too, 
upon  those  of  a  more  liquid  ardency?  The  writer  of 
this  book  naturally  does  not  admit  a  solution  which 
Vv^ould  invalidate  it  from  beginning  to  end.  He  believes 
rather  that  it  is  the  unhealthy  constriction  of  the  art 
which  produces  these  symptoms  in  its  neophytes, 
which  wearies  and  depresses  its  veterans.  Bring  the 
drama  as  an  art  and  a  means  of  education  into  touch 
with  the  normal  life  of  the  community  and  it  will  de- 
velop rationality  as  a  virtue  and  a  strength. 
■  Young  people,  of  course,  will  always  beset  such  a 
school  as  this  fired  with  the  one  irrational  desire  to 
"  learn  to  act."  It  is  in  the  young  —  in 
the  very  young,  as  we  have  seen  —  a  natu-  ^° 
ral  and  engaging  impulse  enough.  But  it  of  a^ctinf 
must  not  be  allowed  to  colour  and  disturb  allowed 
by  its  violence  the  school's  whole  scheme 
of  work,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  the  obvious 
one  that  the  art  of  acting  in  its  fuller  development 
is  not  built  upon  such  an  indulgence.  But  here  is  a 
danger  that  calls  for  deliberate  avoidance.  Insist  all 
one  will  upon  the  concurrence  of  other  studies,  loy- 
ally, even  as  these  young  fanatics  may  try  to  detach 
their  minds  to  them,  their  hearts  will  be  fixed  upon 
acting  —  upon  nothing  but  acting.  The  desire  of  it 
will  possess  them  like  a  sort  of  original  sin.  They  will 
be  acting  from  breakfast  to  bedtime,  in  the  street,  in  the 
solitude  of  their  rooms;  they  will  act  in  their  dreams. 
Their  enthusiasm  must  be  disciplined  or  it  will  evapo- 


102         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

rate  fruitlessly,  or  else  it  will  degenerate  into  a  disease, 
rather  than  develop  to  an  art. 

To  begin  with,  they  must  not  be  allowed  to  indulge 
during  school  hours  in  anything  that  can  be  called 
acting  at  all.  The  rehearsing  of  plays  by  callow  stu- 
dents leads,  under  supervision,  to  their  teaching;  and 
to  the  teaching,  moreover,  not  of  the  principles  of 
acting,  but  of  its  practice  —  or  rather  of  its  practices 
and  too  often  only  of  its  tricks.  Something  of  this  sort 
is  unavoidable  when  any  teacher  begins  to  show  pupils 
"how  to  do  it";  and,  sooner  or  later,  every  teacher  will. 
But  even  without  supervision  the  student,  too  soon 
occupied  with  effect,  neglects  cause;  and  has  not  the 
patience,  has  not  the  equipment,  to  work  through  the 
slow  processes  of  interpretation,  but  takes  short  cuts 
to  what  he  thinks  ought  to  be  the  result,  becomes  imi- 
tative and  impersonative  merely,  and  begins  to  develop 
a  machine-like  efficiency.  The  more  aptitude  he  has 
the  more  easily  will  he  do  this  damage  to  his  art.  Nor 
will  the  harm  end  there,  but  spread.  For  to  fellow- 
students  who  are  either  less  apt  or  whose  interest  in 
acting  is  more  impersonal,  more  purely  educative,  this 
show  of  a  result,  this  showiness  rather,  will  obscure  the 
whole  process  and  meaning  of  their  study,  will  at  the 
least  upset  the  balance  of  the  class  work. 

For  his  own  sake  the  student  should  be  kept  from 
premature  achievement.  Acting  seems  so  easy,  and  like 
all  other  art  ought,  in  its  accomplishment,  to  seem  easy. 
In  its  inception,  moreover,  to  the  unsophisticated, 
happily  unsclf-conscious,  young  person  dwelling  in  the 
false  paradise  of  artistic  innocence  it  is  so  easy  that 
to  plunge  into  the  practice  of  it  without  having  fully 
faced,  not  so  much  its  difficulties  as  its  possibilities  (its 
diHiculties,  that  is,  in  their  finest  sense)  is  inevitably  to 
run  this  risk  of  developing  one's  innocence  not  into 
knowledge,  but  into  an  experienced  and  hardened 
ignorance  —  death  to  one's  own  art,  blight  to  one's 


I 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       103 

surroundings!  In  the  amateur  that  innocence  may 
remain  and  preserve  its  peculiar  charm;  in  the  pro- 
fessional it  must  suffer  this  change,  and,  as  ignorance, 
be  inexcusable.  Then  drive  these  young  people,  mad 
to  act,  —  and  drive  them  hard,  —  against  all  the  more 
troublesome  parts  of  the  business.  Let  them  break 
their  shins,  so  to  speak,  and  spoil  their  strength  over 
voice  production,  elocution,  dialectics,  eurythmics; 
over  the  principles  of  play  writing;  upon  analytical 
criticism,  theatrical  history,  the  history  of  costume, 
costume  designing,  scene  designing  and  making  and 
painting;  not  to  mention  fencing  and  dancing  and  sing- 
ing and  music  generally.  These  make  up  the  whole  art 
of  the  theatre,  nothing  less,  and  now  the  list  is  not  ex- 
hausted. And  if  the  young  actor  does  not  mean  to 
acquire  at  least  some  understanding  of  the  lot,  make  it 
clear  to  him  that,  when  he  emerges  from  apprentice- 
ship, and  comes  to  occupy  his  own  particular  place  in 
any  true  theatre,  he  will  still  be  no  better  than  a  hand 
in  a  factory,  his  status  no  more  distinguished.  Personal 
ambitions  must,  one  fears,  in  these  first  days  be  tanta- 
lized. The  student  will  be  led  time  and  again  to  the 
actual  brink  of  acting  in  a  play,  led  round  and  round, 
and  not  till  the  last  possible  moment  be  allowed  to 
plunge  in.  For  once  he  is  in  he  must  swim  unaided. 
His  enthusiasm  will  survive,  there's  no  fear,  while  his 
unexpended  powers  ripen.  And  if  it  fails  the  theatre 
will  be  the  better  in  the  loss  of  him,  for,  failing  under 
such  a  test,  what  could  he  be  trusted  to  bring  to  its 
service  but  a  little  vain  glory? 

And  the  effect  of  such  discipline  upon  the  school  as  a 
whole  will  surely  be  tonic.  It  must  never  seem  to  offer 
the  meretricious  attractions  of  the  amateur  dramatic 
club  or  it  will  be  doomed  from  the  start  in  the  eyes  of 
those  who  look  to  make  a  solider  use  of  it.  It  is  to  exist 
for  the  exemplary  study  of  drama;  it  will  therefore 
become  its  integrity  to  place  in  its  scheme  all  the  com- 


104         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

ponent  parts  of  drama  according  to  their  proper  pro- 
portion and  worth.  For  thus,  and  thus  alone,  will  it 
succeed  in  attracting  as  students  a  heterogeneous  body 
of  young  men  and  women,  and  in  encouraging  them  to 
seek  in  active  study  of  the  drama  something  whose 
shadow  only  they  look  for  now,  even  in  their  enthusi- 
astic vision  of  an  ideal  theatre,  something  that  they 
would  certainly  never  dream  of  going  to  any  e;cisting 
theatrical  school  to  gain.  If  they  find  it  they  will  re- 
bestow  it  vipon  dramatic  art  with  interest,  some  cre- 
atively, some  appreciatively.  From  our  theatre's  own 
standpoint",  then,  such  a  body  of  students,  who  will, 
most  of  them,  have  no  intention  of  abiding  m  her 
service,  is  best.  And  the  higher  standard  of  general 
competence  that  can  thus  be  set  will  weed  out  the 
weaklings,  in  talent  or  intention,  those  whom  no 
entrance  examination  detects,  those  whose  pledge  to 
continue  their  training  is  valueless  and  worse  —  for 
half-hearted  students  are  the  best  to  be  rid  of.  The 
half-hearted  and  half-talented  of  tardy  discovery  are 
the  curse  of  all  such  schools;  and  their  gradual  accretion 
like  barnacles,  once  they  dare  not  cast  loose,  upon  the 
body  of  the  actor's  calling  is  more  than  a  curse;  it  is  a 
})rolonged  disaster. 

And  a  student  body  with  aims  other  than  professional 
acting  is  an  attainable  object.    We  have  already  noted 
that  the  extended  and  varied  use  of  drama 
?^  ^T         in    general    schooling,    and    its    probable 
the  social        spreading  as  a  means  of  recreation  among 
"settle-  "community-conscious"      people      (them- 

ment"  and  selves  a  growing  class)  can  pro\ade  usefid 
the  com-  bye-paths  into  which  students  that  re- 
J?""?  ^  main  whole-hearted  enough,  but  yet  must 

discover  that  there  are  no  i)crsonal  the- 
atrical triumphs  ahead  for  them,  can  be  deflected, 
*'IIe  who  can,  does;  he  who  cannot,  teaches"  the 
aphorism  has  it.     But  it  is  possible  in   any  art,  and 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       105 

—  this  being,  at  any  rate,  an  imperfectly  put  together 
world  —  in  an  art  which  uses  the  haphazard  gifts  of 
physical  personality  as  its  medium  of  expression  it  is 
very  likely  that  a  talent  may  be  developed,  none  the 
less  real  that  it  will  be  somewhat  inappropriate  to  its 
possessor.  It  is  not  so  much  that  the  heart  of  a  Romeo 
may  exist  in  the  body  of  a  Falstaff  (Nature  is  usually 
apter  than  that.  Besides,  what  a  theme,  comic  or 
tragic,  for  the  dramatist!)  as  that  a  man  may  be  able 
to  cultivate  in  himself  almost  all  the  qualities  of  a 
successful  actor,  and  yet  for  lack  of  one  of  them  will 
fall  short  of  his  apparently  legitimate  ambitions.  It 
may  only  be  perhaps  that  he  cannot  respond  to  the  test 
of  physical  endurance;  great  acting  is  pitifully  depend- 
ent on  the  possession  of  bodily  strength,  and  many  an 
actor  must  be  left  out  of  account  because  he  is  not  a 
"fourth  act"  man.  And  if  again  such  a  good  man's 
chances  are  to  be  narrowed  by  the  theatre's  own  nar- 
rowness as  a  channel  for  the  drama  generally,  the  call- 
ing seems  bound  to  become  a  reservoir  of  disappointed 
men  and  women.  One  will  find  in  it  to-day  more 
such  women  than  men.  Anno  Domini  is,  of  course,  a 
swifter  enemy  to  them,  and  they  do  not  find  such 
opportunity  of  adaptation,  such  a  variety  of  parts,  as 
a  man  may  suit  himself  to. 

Now  to  these  disinherited  heirs  of  popular  success 
the  socialization  *  of  the  drama  should  come  as  a  god- 
send. As  administrators  of  village  and  community 
theatres,  superintendents  of  dramatic  work  in  schools 
and  colleges,  a  career  worthy  of  the  name  would  be 
open  to  them.  Nor  would  they  be  the  theatre's  left- 
handed  gift  to  society.  Granted  the  early  discipline  of 
its  comprehensive  study,  they  might  often  become  more 
truly  masters  of  their  art  than  those  whose  too  con- 
tinued practice  of  it  made  them  rather  its  servants. 

*  The  word  is  used  in  its  strict  sense,  not  as  necessarily  connoting 
any  doctrinaire  form  of  Socialism. 


106         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

The  instinct  for  acting  is  such  a  common  one  that  we 
can  seldom  foresee  whether  cultivation  will  strengthen 
or  destroy  it  (early  strength  is  no  guarantee  of  matur- 
ity) ;  but  it  must  undergo  the  test.  There  is  no  reason 
whatever,  though,  that  the  development  of  a  general 
understanding  of  the  art  in  place  of  a  faculty  for  in- 
dividual expression  in  its  medium  should  rank  as  fail- 
ure if  only  the  opportunities  for  exercise  and  influence 
are  there.  At  present  it  is  as  if  —  for  a  parallel  — 
fiction  and  poetry  were  the  only  forms  of  literature. 
But  the  drama  also  needs  its  pure  scholarship. 

Conversely,  one  might  anticipate  with  a  certain  mis- 
chievous satisfaction  that  were  the  study  of  acting 

made  wide  enough  in  its  application  (as 
c  idts  ^       ^^^  ^^^  sake  of  the  actors  themselves  it 

should  be)  people  bent  on  more  serious 
careers  —  in  the  church,  at  the  bar,  in  politics,  and 
asking  only  by  the  way  for  what  little  help  in  self- 
development  they  thought  that  dramatic  art  might 
bring  them  —  would  halt  at  some  moment  to  recog- 
nize their  more  fitting  career  in  the  theatre.  For  cer- 
tainly there  are  men  now  in  the  church,  at  the  bar,  in 
politics,  so-called  successes,  who  seem  to  have  nothing 
but  histrionic  capacity  to  recommend  them.  Whether 
the  theatre  would  profit  by  their  acquisition  may  be 
disputable,  but  their  present  professions  do  not.  And 
if,  now  and  then,  the  theatre  did  seduce  a  possible  good 
lawyer  or  priest  they  ought  not  to  be  grudged  her.  If 
she  is  not  a  calling  fitted  for  the  best  men  it  needs  but 
a  few  of  them  to  help  make  her  so. 

Finally:  as  we  began  by  admitting  that,  however 
broad  the  basis  of  study,  the  school's  work  would 
rightly  be  directed  towards  the  perfecting  of  dramatic 
art  itself,  exemplified  in  the  finest  achievements  of  the 
theatre,  so  it  would  aim  to  find  among  its  students  a 
small  surviving  band  whom  d(>]iberatc  and  sustained 
choice  and  the  discipline  of  hard  technical  training  had 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       107 

only  confirmed  in  their  desire  for  the  promised  land  of 
their  art.  Well,  too,  if  their  choice  can  be  kept  to  the 
last  possible  moment  a  little  free  by  fellowship  with 
men  and  women  working  towards  other  ends;  while 
the  school 's  usefulness  to  these,  for  whom  study  of  the 
drama  is  to  be  a  mere  means,  will  be  a  controlling  test 
of  the  theatre's  own  wider  fulfilment  of  its  purpose 
in  the  community  at  large. 

Into  a  more  specialized  category  of  study  would  fall 
playwriting  classes.  To  those  familiar  with  the  work 
of  this  sort,  originated  by  Professor  Baker 
at  Harvard  and  now  imitated  and  devel-  ,  aywn  ing 
oped  all  over  America,  there  is  no  need 
to  insist  upon  its  pertinence  in  any  school  of  the 
theatre.  Its  effect  upon  American  drama  is  already 
patent.* 

Such  classes  t  are  most  conveniently  made  up  of 
from  ten  to  twenty  students,  of  whatever  seems  the 
right  number  for  free,  informal  discussion.  From  the 
nature  of  their  procedure  one  might  better  describe 
them  as  seminars.  A  student  —  or  two,  or  even  three, 
it  may  be,  that  have  joined  in  collaboration  —  will 
bring  a  play  for  the  consideration  of  the  class.     The 

*  An  advisable,  an  almost  necessary,  beginning  to  any  practical 
attempt  to  realise  such  a  school  as  this  would  be  a  careful  critical 
report  of  the  remarkable  and  very  varied  work  being  done  in  almost 
every  American  university  and  college.  Some  of  it  is  doubtless 
experimental  and  may  be  without  permanent  value,  some  of  it  is 
inco-ordinatc  and  under  the  curse  of  being  expected  to  show  im- 
mediate and  effective  results.  Much  of  the  best  of  it  is  carried  on 
under  every  sort  of  discouragement.  But,  as  a  whcle,  it  is  a  body  of 
endeavour,  which,  while  it  cannot  create  a  great  American  drama  — 
foolish  to  expect  that  it  should  —  is  providing  every  chance  for  its 
development.  It  is  fertilizing  the  soil.  Later  may  come  a  sense  of 
the  equal  need  of  organizing  the  theatre  itself,  where  alone,  under 
as  wholesome  conditions  as  give  it  birth,  a  drama  may  flourish. 

t  What  follows  is  not  accurate  description  of  any  existing  ones, 
but  it  indicates,  fairly  correctly,  the  lines  on  which  they  may  be 
run. 


108         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

authorship  remains  as  far  as  possible  anonymous.  The 
play  may  be  brought  in  an  unfinished,  but  not  an  un- 
formed, condition;  it  may  lack,  that  is  to  say,  a  last 
act,  but  its  dialogue  and  scenes  must  be  consecutive. 
It  is  either  read  aloud  by  the  conductor  of  the  class  or 
distributed  in  MS.  It  is  then  put  upon  the  table  for 
discussion,  destructive  criticism,  constructive  sugges- 
tion. The  author  will  disguise  his  identity  as  best  he 
may,  either  by  partaking  (this  needs  some  histrionic 
de-impersonative  ability  besides)  or  abstaining;  the 
anonymity  is  only  important  in  helping  the  class  to 
discuss  the  play  with  absolute  freedom.  The  author 
may  take  advantage,  negative  or  positive,  of  the  criti- 
cism, and  bring  up  the  play  again  in  a  further  stage  of 
development.  Its  ultimate  destiny  may  well  be  the 
waste-paper  basket.  It  is  admittedly  prentice  work, 
and  although  the  apprentice  may  prematurely  produce 
a  masterpiece  he  is  not  to  be  expected,  or  even  en- 
couraged, to  do  so.  Early  achievement  in  this,  as  in  all 
else,  is  inimical  to  sustained  study. 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  procedure,  with  whatever 
possibilities  of  variation,  is  simple  enough.  The  validity 
of  the  whole  idea  of  such  classes  has  been  questioned, 
but  chiefly  from  the  point  of  view  of  literary  men,  to 
whom  composition  is  an  extremely  individual,  and 
generally  a  solitary  thing.  For  an  answer  one  may 
note:  first,  that  the  playwright's  work  is  not  primarily 
literary  at  all  —  the  writing  down  of  the  play  is  mere 
convenience;  secondly,  that  he  is  part  artist  but  part 
craftsman,  most  akin,  in  his  methods  perhaps,  to  an 
architect,  essentially,  therefore,  a  collaborator,  even 
tliougli  his  be  the  creative  beginning  of  the  collabora- 
tion; thirdly,  that  as  he  is  far  more  concerned  with 
technif|ue  than  other  literary  men  his  work  is  the  more 
discussil)le  quite  apart  from  its  inspirational  side. 

That  no  amount  of  criticism  within  class  or  without 
will  make  a  man  a  great  playwright  need  not  be  ques- 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       109 

tioned.  The  claim  of  the  class  is  that  he  will  at  least 
learn  there  the  nature  of  his  materials,  and  will  see 
their  possibilities  in  the  handling.  It  is  to  be  supposed 
too  that  the  class  critic,  by  attack  and  defence,  learns 
as  much  as  the  class  author. 

Nor  need  a  career  as  a  playwright  be  the  student's 
single  goal.  How  far  an  application  of  the  excellent 
rule  that  to  be  complete  master  in  any  one  branch  of 
art  some  service  in  every  one  is  desirable  would  bring 
into  the  playwriting  classes  future  actors  and  producers 
we  need  not  inquire,  for  we  have  held  that  any  broaden- 
ing of  study,  and  for  the  actor  any  suspension  of  gradu- 
ation, is  desirable.  The  generally  educational  value  of 
the  work  is  very  demonstrable.  If  Greek  and  Latin 
verse,  English  composition,  precis  writing,  and  the  like 
are  good  training  in  literary  expression  the  discipline  of 
playwriting  can  certainly  hold  its  place  with  them.  As 
a  lesson  in  conciseness  the  well-made  play  is  only  to  be 
beaten  by  the  sonnet.  Of  construction,  exposition, 
clarity,  consistency  it  can  be  made  a  perfect  example. 
It  is  notorious  how  many  accustomed  and  easy-going 
essayists  and  writers  of  fiction  will  fall  short  when  they 
try  their  hands  now  and  then  at  the  more  exacting 
task.  And,  for  all  their  protests  after  failure,  it  is  not 
ignorance  of  a  few  unworthy  theatrical  tricks  that  has 
betrayed  them,  but  often  a  sheer  inability  to  realize  or 
compass  the  hard  planning  and  austere  practice  of  the 
dramatic  form. 

There  are  tricks,  as  in  every  other  trade,  to  be  learnt 
if  you  like,  and  then  for  their  poverty  avoided;  and  a 
very  little  more  appreciation  of  good  drama  would 
render  the  worst  of  them  (except  for  their  sleight-of- 
hand  fun)  ineffective  and  worthless.  It  is  true,  of 
course,  that  the  content  of  the  best-made  play  may  be 
inferior  to  that  of  a  rambling  novel  or  a  slovenly  bi- 
ography. And  these,  again,  have  their  constructional 
virtues,  which  are  not  those  of  the  play  form.    But  as  a 


110  THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

training  in  any  sort  of  writing  the  play  has  its  peculiar 
advantages.    It  is  hard  discipline. 

One  aspect  of  the  playwriting  classes  needs  comment. 
The  work  has  no  relation  to  the  workaday  activity  of  a 
theatre,  and  it  may  seem  that  as  the  playwright  will 
exercise  his  craft  detachedly  he  might  better  study  it 
so;  that  there  is  a  real  objection  to  his  being  exposed  at 
such  an  impressionable  time  to  influences  which  may 
belittle  his  work's  value,  may  tend  to  reduce  it  to  the 
importance  of  a  sort  of  verbal  scene-painting.  With 
the  theatre  as  it  is  now,  in  a  school  that  has  only  its 
annex,  the  objection  would  be  very  valid.  But  if  this 
theatre  as  school  does  not,  by  everything  else  that  is 
in  it,  turn  this  drawback  to  advantage  it  will  exist  in 
vain.  In  all  reality  the  playwright  is  a  collaborator, 
and  his  work  but  the  part  of  a  whole.  Its  inception 
may  best  be  individual  and  solitar\%  and  no  doubt 
such  a  man  is  intellectually  better  off  in  the  society  of 
those  whose  minds  are  not  over-occupied  with  the 
derivative  processes  of  the  theatre.  But  the  remem- 
brance of  the  coming  collaborators  should  always  be 
with  him,  and  as  soon  as  the  completing  phase  of  pro- 
duction begins  he  should  personally  assist  at  it  if  possi- 
ble. The  best  of  producers  is  no  good  substitute  for 
the  playwright  himself.  But,  again,  if  he  is  not  to  be 
more  of  a  nuisance  than  a  help  he  should  know  at  least 
as  much  of  the  inner  workings  of  the  actor's  craft  as 
he  may  expect  the  actor  to  understand  of  the  exigencies 
of  his,  and  he  can  only  learn  this  in  tmy  useful  sense  by 
experience  or  close  observation. 

It  is  noticeable  that  the  plajnArighting  study  groups 
in  America  are  apt  to  carry  on  in  what  are  called  work- 
shops,* having  discovered,  one  presiunes,  that  their 
members  write  more  practical!  plays,  at  least,  if  they 
take  the  responsibility  of  acting  them,  of  painting  and 

*  Prr.fcssor  Ccorfjc  V.  Baker's  Harv.-vrd  liabitat  is  known  as  The 
47  Workshop,  uud  it  is  the  exemplar  for  many  others. 


f 

PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       111 

shifting  their  scenery  too.  That  is  sound,  without 
doubt.  One's  only  criticism  would  be  that  the  full 
rounding  of  this  particular  circle  of  experience  does 
not  atone  for  its  minuteness.  The  gain  would  probably 
be  greater  if  the  prentice-playwright  could  see  the  work 
that  is  complementary  to  his  own  more  proficiently 
done  than  he  himself  need  ever  aspire  to  do  it.  What 
he  needs  is  the  chance  to  sense  sharply  the  compara- 
tive value  of  his  own  share  in  the  complete  process; 
and  he  will  do  this  most  profitably  by  being  brought 
into  contact  with  the  rest  of  the  work  at  its  positive 
best. 

In  as  close,   but  in   a  contrasted,   relation   to  the 
school's  work  would  come  its  study  of  the  decorative 
arts  of  the  theatre.    While  play  writing  may 
begin  intimately  and  will  cut  loose,   the        ,  ^^^  ,. 
dress  designer  and  scene-painter  must  ob- 
viously look  elsewhere  to  be  taught  their  particular 
A.B.C.  No  more  need  for  a  theatre  as  school  to  in- 
volve itself  in  that  than,  on  the  ground  that  it  calls 
for  music  now  and  then,  it  should  be  required  to  set 
up  a  class  for  trombone  players.     The  basis  of  study 
could  be  made  too  broad. 

There  could  be  classes  in  the  history  and  the  tech- 
nical planning  of  scenery,  in  the  history  and  designing 
of  costume,  equally  suited  for  students  completing  a 
general  education  in  drama  and  those  that  were  making 
a  career  by  studying  painting  and  drawing  elsewhere 
but  had  an  eye  to  possible  work  in  the  theatre  later. 
But  practical  work  would  need  to  be  that  done  to  meet 
the  theatre's  actual  requirements,  and  could  be  joined 
in  only  upon  such  conditions  as  these  dictated.  We 
must  not  forget  that  this  is  the  theatre  as  school,  and 
not  a  school  of  the  theatre  operating  at  large.  It 
would  be  clearly  impossible  to  set  up  large  studios  in 
which  scenery  was  experimentally  built  and  painted,  and 
costumes  were  made  just  for  the  fun  of  making  them. 


112         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

SO  to  speak.    For  one  thing,  the  cost  would  be  prohibi- 
tive.   But,  apart  from  this,  we  should  be  at  once  be- 
trayed   into   the   worst    errors    of   particularism.*     A 
dramatist  who  works  without  reference  to  the  acting 
and  staging  that  his  play  will  need,  an  actor  who  takes 
such  an  absolute  view  of  his  art  that  he  hardly  ad- 
mits obligation  to  the  dramatist,  are  alike  guilty,  and 
pay  the  penalty  of  their  detachment  in  the  ineffective- 
ness which  will  always  result  in  the  co-operative  drama 
from    individual    over-assertion.     Not    less    mistaken 
is  the   artist   (so  he  claims  to  be  far   excellence)   to 
whom  the  demands  of  the  theatre  are,  first  and  last, 
material  to  be  compassed  by  his  own  imagination.  Hav- 
ing sated  it,  he  will  be  good  enough  to  allow  dramatist 
and  actor  —  if  he  cannot  see  himself  rid  of  these  alto- 
gether —  to  polish  off,  at  his  dictation,  the  few  details 
that  remain.    This  really  will  not  do.    It  can  have  no 
relation  to  the  realities  of  the  theatre.    Vision  is  above 
all  things  to  be  respected  and  served,  but  when  it  can 
only  exist  and  prosper  unfettered  the  visionary  must 
abide  by  his  isolation  and  the  conditions  that  attach  to 
it.    When  the  message  comes  down  frcim  the  mountain 
the  workers  on  the  plain  must  make  the  best  use  of  it 
they  can,  and,  one  fears,  adapt  it,  like  the  poor  day-by- 
day  labourers  they  are,  to  their  current  needs.     Use- 
less to  plan  the  removing  of  very  complex  and  mundane 
machinery   to   a  mountain   top,   for   there   are  many 
prophets  to  serve,  and  each  prophet  has,  and  prefers, 
his  own  mountain!     The  theatre  is  not  the  place  for 
the  unchecked  expression  of  a  dominant  individuality, 
and  any  attempt  to  make  it  so  is  a  step  towards  its 
destruction.     INhich  could  be  learned,  no  doubt,  from 
seeing  a  theatre  glorified  and  destroyed  by  an  individual 
genius.     Much  would  be  gained  by  the  theatre  as  a 
whole  taking  example  of  what  to  do  and  —  it  might 

An  imminent  flanker,  a[)parcnlly,  the  moment  a  decorative 
artist  sees  the  theatre  in  his  grasp. 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       113 

possibly  be  —  of  what  not  to  do.  Such  experiments 
are  to  be  hoped  for,  and  from  a  surplus  of  energy  should 
be  provided  for.  But  we  deal  here  with  general  prin- 
ciples; and  subversive  doctrine  must  therefore  rank  as 
heresy  and  sufl'er  condemnation,  certainly  until  the  true 
and  more  catholic  faith  has  been  safely  established. 

It  should,  though,  be  possible  to  provide  for  some 
free  experimenting  within  the  walls  of  the  exemplary 
theatre  itself.  The  most  fruitful  time  for  it  would 
probably  be  when  students,  towards  the  end  of  their 
prentice  tasks,  were  straining  upon  the  leash  of  them  a 
little,  but  were  as  yet  uncommitted  to  a  daily  round  of 
responsible  w^ork.  Some  natures,  of  course,  retain  an 
impulse  for  the  untried  through  a  long  career.  It  is  the 
final  triumph  of  any  institution  to  be  able  to  give  these 
untameables  fair  scope  and  still  keep  them  loyal  to  its 
service,  and  it  will  be  well  worth  the  stretching  of  many 
points  of  discipline  to  do  so.  For  in  them,  all  appear- 
ances to  the  contrary,  will  often  lie  the  spirit  of  its  sur- 
vival. Losing  them,  no  way  to  it  may  be  left  but  by 
the  violent  process  of  destruction  and  rebirth. 

The  capacity  of  the  theatre  workshops  to  entertain 
apprentices  might  not  equal  the  demand  for  practical 
experience  that  students  would  make  of  them.  A  cer- 
tain amount  of  sheer  demonstration  for  their  benefit 
could  be  attempted;  some  benefit  accrue  from  a  han- 
dling of  models.  But,  generally  speaking,  the  workshops 
would  be  the  narrow  neck  of  the  bottle  through  which 
only  picked  students  could  hope  to  pass;  and  only  a 
further  selection  of  them  could  hope  for  definite  and 
continued  emplo;^Tnent  in  the  work  of  the  theatre.  On 
the  other  hand,  remembering  that  the  demand  for  this 
work  must  always  be  limited,  the  supply  of  students 
wanting  to  devote  an  apprentice's  full  time  to  it  might 
well  regulate  itself  accordingly. 

But  the  main  artery  of  work  in  the  theatre  as  school 
is  likely  to  be  the  co-operative  study  of  plays.    It  will 


114         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

be,  that  is  to  say,  if  the  drama  of  analysis  —  and  espe- 
cially of    social  analysis  —  with  its  peculiar  interpre- 
tative demands,  continues  the  remarkable 

The  development    of    the    last    thirty    years. 

co-operative    r^i  •      n    •,  ^      ,,       . • 

study  of  ^-lasses    m   hnite    and   attractive  accom- 

plays  plishments  may  be  more  closely  besieged 

by  the  tentative  crowd.    But  the  student 
committing  himself   to    the  theatre   as   a  career   will 
find  that  here  is  the  core  of  the  matter  for  him:  he 
will   be   drawn  to  relate  every  other  study   to   this. 
When  they  have  receded  in  his  experience  to  rank  as 
mere  training,  or  remain  as  a  pleasant  gjTimastic,  the 
practice  of  this  will  endure,  for  his  final  maturity  is  to 
be  that  of  the  supple  and  sensitive  interpretative  artist. 
Moreover,  it  is  upon  the  broad  development  of  this 
study  that  the  claims  of  the  drama  itself  to  be  generally 
educative  can  most  safely  rest.    Now,  as  the  playwright 
has  often  moved  momentarily  beyond  the  reach  of  his 
interpreters,  so,  it  is  obvious,  the  student  could  elabo- 
rate this  aspect  of  the  drama  beyond  the  containing 
power  of  the  theatre.    And,  working  apart  from  the  co- 
ordinating influence  of  the  theatre  itself,  he  might  well 
do  so,  and  another  drama,  more  fitted  for  the  study 
than  the  stage,  might  be  gendered.    But  working  with- 
in its  circle  there  is  little  such  danger.     The  student 
whose  place  when  study  is  over  will  be  not  upon  the 
stage  but  among  the  audience,  whose  approach  to  his 
subject  will,  as  is  to  be  shown,  differ  considerably  in 
later  stages  from  the  actor's,  may  indeed  most  aptly 
fulfil  the  very  useful  function  of  pointing  to,  and  test- 
ing, the  extreme  development  of  the  dramatic  form  in 
this  direction.     Who  is  to  say,  for  instance,   that  a 
Platonic  dialogue  or  the  like  is  not  a  possible  play  — 
given   suitable   interpretation   and   suitable   audience? 
Tlic  one  cannot  be  developed  without  the  intclhgent 
sympathy  of  the  other.    But  it  is  by  such  disinterested 
study,  which  incurs  no  obligation  for  uumcdiate  effect 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       115 

or  even  for  ultimate  success,  that  art  as  well  as  science 
is  given  life  and  continuance. 

This  co-operative  study  of  plays  must,  of  all  others, 
proceed  from  the  very  beginning  less  upon  the  lines  of 
a  class  than  of  a  seminar.  It  may  well  be  the  best  plan 
for  the  study  of  any  art.  One  notes  its  traditional  use 
for  painting  and  sculpture:  the  pupils  at  work  in  a 
common  studio,  a  professor  appearing  at  intervals  as 
critic,  constructive  and  destructive,  of  the  work  under 
way.  The  resultant  freedom  of  the  novice  to  feel  and 
find  his  own  path  —  saved  only  from  too  disastrous 
blunderings,  and  then  more  by  example  than  pre- 
cept —  is  certainly  a  necessary  basis  for  any  such  work 
as  we  are  to  outline  here. 

We  must  note  as  we  proceed  where  the  differences  of 

approach  as  between  general  and  particular  student, 

as  between  the  use  of  a  play  for  the  educa- 

tional  purpose  and  its  preparation  for  the    .  "  ^^^  .^J^ 
1-11  T        mi  -n  ■       1  A^       interpreta- 

stage,  are  likely  to  he.     1  hey  will  tend  to    ^j^^  i^^^g 

develop  at  different  times  in  differing  plays. 
In  some  they  will  be  of  no  practical  import  till  pres- 
entation to  an  audience  is  in  question,  and  then 
will  be  merely  practical  matters  —  to  put  it  crudely  — 
of  dressing-up  and  moving  about;  in  others  they  would 
be  from  the  beginning  so  marked  —  the  approach  be- 
ing obviously,  as  with  a  mime  play,  on  the  lines  of 
pure  performance  —  as  to  rule  out  the  usefulness  of 
such  plays  as  a  medium  of  study  altogether.  But  it 
is  most  to  our  present  purpose  to  insist  upon  the  iden- 
tity of  the  methods  that  can  be  employed  for  both 
study  and  production,  and  to  comment,  if  but  by  im- 
plication, upon  the  fact  that  each  process,  as  now 
followed,  lacks  an  essential  that  the  other  could  supply. 
Production,  for  instance,  lacks  concurrent  criticism. 
What  the  actor  thinks  of  his  own  part  he,  as  a  rule, 
wisely  keeps  to  himself  —  wisely,  if  heroically,  for  he, 
at  one  with  the  part,  is  soon  to  be  criticized  himself. 


116         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

and  a  disclaimer  of  identity  will  then  avail  him  little. 
While  for  co-operative  criticism  no  provision  at  all  is 
made;  and,  indeed,  under  ordinary  conditions  of  re- 
hearsing it  would  only  result  in  chaos.  The  position 
of  the  author  is  god-like  —  worship  and  obedience  being 
offered  to  him  according  to  the  credit  of  his  cult. 
Mutterings  of  unbelief  must  be  low,  for  under  this 
banner,  after  all,  everyone  concerned  is  now  pledged 
to  march  to  victory  or  defeat.  Loyalty,  then,  is  a  self- 
regardful  virtue.  And  if  the  producer  told  the  actors 
what  he  really  thought  of  the  play  it  might  depress 
them  unendurably.  When  the  actors  discuss  each 
other's  parts  the  effect  is  commonly  disturbing,  though 
a  kindly  provision  of  nature  somehovv  always  makes 
the  part  you  haven't  got  seem  the  better  one.  It  is 
the  worst  manners  to  comment  to  your  fellow  actor 
upon  his  potential  performance  except  in  the  terms  of 
the  most  formal  (or  fulsome)  compliment;  reasonably 
enough,  since  his  artistic  life  is  at  stake  and  you  cannot 
be  responsible  for  saving  it.  There  develops,  in  fact, 
as  rehearsals  proceed,  a  conspiracy  of  rather  desperate 
silence  as  to  the  merits  of  the  whole  affair. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  detached  and  critical  study 
of  drama  now  lacks  the  first,  the  most  essential,  con- 
dition of  fruitfulness.  For  until  a  play  has  been  brought 
to  life  by  the  assumption  and  setting  in  motion  of  its 
characters  no  criticism  of  it  can  be  valid.  If  may  be 
said,  indeed,  that  the  task  of  the  seminar  —  our  pro- 
posed combination  of  the  two  methods  —  will  be  for 
the  students  first  to  bring  the  play  to  life  and  then 
destroy  it  again  by  criticism  if  they  legitimately  can. 
The  poorer  the  play,  of  course,  the  more  easily  could 
this  be  accomplished.  There  are  many  plays,  it  goes 
without  saying,  that  now  pursue  their  way  to  produc- 
tion, but  never  could  have  survived  two  hours'  pre- 
liminary destructive  criticism.  Far  belter  had  they 
thus  perished  at  the  righteous  hands  of  their  actors 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       117 

before  ever  the  footlights  illumined  them.  It  is  less 
obvious,  but  as  true,  that  drama  may  make  the  bravest 
show  on  paper,  and  even  —  treated  by  actors  with 
that  respectful  dislike  which  they  suppose  to  be  due  to 
the  classic  and  superior  —  maintain  a  sort  of  galvan- 
ized life,  when  it  would  collapse  quickly  enough  if 
charged  with  any  real  vitality;  or  there  may  be  pre- 
served the  illusion  of  a  play  which  has  really  been  dis- 
solved into  the  atmosphere  of  its  acting. 

What  amount  of  technical  training  in  its  expressive 
side  will  a  student  need  before  he  can  usefully  join  in 
this  work.^  Not  very  much.  For  it  will  be  noted  that 
a  class  of  this  sort  will  have  to  accommodate  more 
than  the  number  required  to  cast  any  particular  play. 
For  one  reason,  any  alternate  shrinkage  and  increase 
of  numbers  would  otherwise  be  a  nuisance.  For  an- 
other, and  a  better,  the  elasticity  which  an  overplus  of 
students  brings  to  the  discussion  will  be  very  valuable. 
One  does  not  want  merely  to  have  the  cast  of  the 
play  discussing  the  play,  for  —  bearing  in  mind  our 
preliminary  obligation  to  vitalize  the  work  by  imper- 
sonation —  this  procedure  would  tend  very  quickly 
to  harden  into  a  sort  of  rehearsal;  good  enough  in 
itself  perhaps,  better  than  any  one  may  find  at  pres- 
ent, but  unsuited  to  our  present  non-productive 
purpose. 

The  play  would  be  cast,  of  course.  It  would  not  do 
to  start  every  meeting  by  a  fresh  or  a  haphazard  allot- 
ment of  the  parts.  That  would  give  us  no  continuity 
of  development  in  its  study.  But  there  is  nothing 
against  a  temporary  turning  of  critic  into  executant, 
nor  against  the  exchange  of  parts  —  nothing,  indeed, 
against  any  device  which  would  turn  the  play's  every 
possible  facet  into  the  light  of  discussion.  It  will  be 
seen,  then,  that  while  no  "dead  wood"  is  to  be  desired, 
no  perforcedly  silent  listeners,  no  crowd,  these  classes 
would  yet  accommodate  indefinite  numbers.    Not  only 


118         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

that,  but  there  would  be  an  actual  advantage  in  compos- 
ing them  of  students  in  varying  stages  of  training ;  by  no 
other  means  would  a  man  learn  quicker  how  much  of  his 
art  he  didn  't  know  and  what  was  the  worth  of  all  that 
he  did.  An  equal  and  an  obvious  advantage  lies  in  form- 
ing the  classes  of  students  who  would  approach  the 
plays  from  various  points  of  view  —  the  playwright's, 
the  actor's,  the  critic's,  as  well  as  from  that  more 
broadly,  and  perhaps  destructively,  critical  standpoint 
which  may  be  taken  by  the  outsider,  concerned  only 
for  the  value  of  the  whole  business  in  its  application 
to  whatever  is  for  him  (and  for  the  moment!)  ulti- 
mate reality. 

It  may  be  surmised  that  the  conductor  of  the  semi- 
nar will  not  have  an  easy  task.    We  are  now  imagining 

.     ,  one  twenty  or  thirty  students  strong,  and 

the"T°^  its  control  will  call  for  both  authority  and 

to  life  experience.    But  smaller  affairs  are  not  to 

be  ruled  out,  and  half  a  dozen  students 
working  upon  a  play  might  well  be  left  to  elect  their 
own  conductor,  for  it  is  in  this  post  that  the  train- 
ing of  a  play  producer  will  be  found.  His  powers  will 
be  roughly  those  of  the  chairman  of  a  connnittee,  and 
the  best  conductor,  by  that  parallel,  will  be  he  who 
exercises  them  least  arbitrarily.  When  he  is  indeed  a 
producer  with  responsibility  for  results  his  powers  will 
need  to  be  both  increased  and  more  strictly  defined. 
For  a  play's  production  involves  agreement,  even  if 
that  has  finally  to  be  imposed;  but  for  its  study  an  in- 
telligent disagreement  may  be,  to  the  end,  more  im- 
portant. The  task  of  the  seminar  will,  of  course,  be  to 
come,  if  possil)le,  to  a  conmion  understanding  of  the 
play:  that  will  be  the  hall-mark  of  a  quite  successful 
session.  But  the  unity  will  be  of  no  value  unless  it  has 
proceeded  from  diversity;  unless,  indeed,  it  is  a  gen- 
uine reconciliation.  And  if  diversity  does  not  exist  to 
begin  with  it  will  even  be  the  conductor's  business  to 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       119 

produce  it.  These  things  are  a  parable,  and  they  are 
the  gist  of  the  drama's  educational  claims.  To  bring  a 
mere  show  of  unity  out  of  diversity  is  a  trite  task, 
which  might  be  achieved  by  vote-taking  in  a  debating 
society.  Let  us  be  clear  that  this  studying  of  plays  is  a 
very  far  cry  from  that,  and  must  never  be  allowed  to 
degenerate  into  that.  Its  mainspring  is  not  to  be  dis- 
puting, however  mentally  clarifying  that  may  be.  Our 
object  is  to  create  a  unity  in  diversity  —  a  very  differ- 
ent and  a  far  more  promising  thing.  Unity  in  diversity 
must  be  our  social  ideal,  and  it  is  this  that  drama  in  its 
very  nature  does  expound  and,  through  the  sympathetic 
power  of  impersonation,  interpret.  This  is  the  drama's 
secret.  Our  understanding  of  things  human  will  be 
barren  unless  we  have  emotionally  realized  them  first. 
Experience  teaches  us,  it  is  true,  and  if  we  were  wholly 
unimaginative  creatures  it  might  remain  our  only 
master.  But  individual  experience  at  the  best  is  not 
wide,  and  it  is  hard  to  summarize,  interpret,  relate  to 
the  common  lot,  and  re-value  in  these  wider  terms. 
Not  more  than  once  or  twice  in  a  lifetime,  perhaps,  do 
we  stand  so  revealed  to  ourselves.  We  are  too  inti- 
mate with  our  own  hearts;  that  is  the  trouble.  And 
nothing  ends  in  them  till  life  ends,  nor  can  we  look  back 
with  certainty  to  any  beginning;  we  know  that  our 
causes  are  really  all  effects.  Therefore  we  turn  to 
interpretative  art  for  a  synthesis,  but  - —  so  incapable 
are  we  of  applying  a  direct  test  to  anything  but  the 
demands  and  satisfaction  of  our  crude  appetites  —  we 
must  even  then  trust  to  the  vicarious  experience  it 
offers  to  recognize  the  validity  of  the  very  elements 
that  most  largely  compose  it.  Now,  it  is  drama,  the 
dramatic  power  of  the  assumption  of  a  second  identity, 
than  can  provide  for  us  best  in  this  kind.  Of  the  di- 
rectly interpretative  arts  it  is  the  strictest  in  form;  in  no 
other  can  the  argument  be  rounded  up,  or  rounded 
off,  so  completely;  in  no  other,  if  our  criticism  be  keen, 


120  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

are  the  fallacies  of  the  artist  more  nakedly  exposed. 
And  from  no  other  art  do  we  gain  the  essential  life- 
giving  virtue,  without  which  the  best  reasoning  is 
barren,  of  this  personal  realization  of  the  human  mate- 
rial of  a  problem,  and,  for  the  time  that  we  imaginatively 
occupy  that  second  self,  as  genuine  a  responsibility  for 
its  welfare  as  we  take,  day  by  day,  for  our  bodily  life 
and  limb.  But  the  unity  in  diversity  that  we  seek 
must  be  achieved  as  a  crown  to  this  responsibility, 
never  by  its  sacrifice. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  upon  acting  itself  as  a 
part  of  the  school 's  work  we  had  —  paradoxically,  did 
it  seem,  in  a  school  mainly  ordained  for  its  study.''  — 
placed  a  ban  not  to  be  lifted  till  the  last  possible  mo- 
ment. It  is  in  the  work  of  these  seminars  of  play  study 
that  the  advantage  of  the  prohibition  will  be  chiefly 
seen.  Imagine  a  set  of  young  students  keen,  keyed  up, 
and  yet  restrained  by  hard  technical  training  in  the 
gymnastic  of  their  future  art,  all  impatient  to  be  show- 
ing what  they  can  do.  They  are  necessary  to  the  sem- 
inar; without  them  the  more  coldly  critical  minds 
would  bring  the  work  to  sterile  debating.  On  the  other 
hand  it  will  be  for  these,  who  are  students  of  the  drama 
only  as  a  subject  contributory  to  their  general  educa- 
tion, to  put  every  obstacle  in  the  way  of  a  conscience- 
less ignoring  of  the  weaknesses,  or  a  facile  overpassing 
of  the  difficulties,  of  a  play.  Not,  though,  that  one 
would  attempt  to  confine  them  to  criticism.  When 
later,  as  audience,  it  is  their  taste  and  judgment  which 
sets  the  standard  of  plays'  performances  they  will  ex- 
ercise it  the  better  for  having  come  as  near  as  may  be 
to  acting  themselves.  In  the  seminar  they  must  prove 
their  points  of  criticism,  and  as  much  accomplishment 
as  they  need  for  this  —  it  will  not  be  nuicli,  as  for 
purposes  of  study  only  the  play  is  to  be  halted  far  this 
side  of  staging  —  they  had  better  acquire.  We  have 
assumed  some  power  of  dramatic  expression  to  be  a 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       121 

part  of  every  education ;  here  will  be  a  test  of  its  quality 
and  value.  If  a  man  disputes  the  conduct  of  a  scene, 
or  the  reading  of  a  part,  let  him  take  over  the  part  or 
conduct  the  scene  himself.  The  whole  scheme  and 
purpose  of  the  work  implies  that  he  can  and  should. 
There  is  no  division  yet  into  actors  and  audience.  We 
are  not  concerned  with  effects,  but  with  causes  and 
process  —  above  all,  with  process.  And  a  third  party, 
the  student-dramatist,  will  find  his  use  in  the  work, 
not  only  as  actor  and  critic,  but  as  the  observer  of 
both.  For  here  is  a  performance  in  embryo;  and  he 
is  always  to  remember  that  only  in  its  performance 
will  his  own  future  work  be  complete. 

Let  us  outline,  however  roughly,  the  Howthesem- 
progress  of  one  of  these  seminars.  One  inar  works 
supposes,  first,  a  straightforward  reading 
of  the  play;  twice  or  thrice  repeated,  with  the  readers 
varied.  That  stamps  its  meaning  upon  our  minds  as  far 
as  the  author's  own  words,  barely  assisted,  can  convey 
it.  The  next  step  is  to  discover  how  far  we  are  all  at 
intellectual  agreement  upon  the  play's  meaning,  when 
expressed  in  other  words  than  the  author's,  upon  its 
implications  and  applications.  There  is  room  now  for 
a  general  discussion,  a  sort  of  "second  reading"  debate. 
The  tact  of  the  conductor  will  be  taxed,  no  doubt,  to 
keep  this  within  reasonable  limits.  He  must  remember 
in  particular  that  the  discussion  is  only  of  value  as  a 
preparation  for  the  next  stage,  in  which  the  seminar's 
characteristic  work  begins.  However,  in  six  plays  out 
of  ten  the  issue  is  apt  to  be  so  closely  defined  that 
agreement  upon  it  may  seem  almost  too  easy  to  come 
by.  And  the  next  step  is  to  demonstrate  how  the  im- 
porting of  emotional  values  may  completely  upset 
conclusions  arrived  at  without  their  consideration. 
This  is  the  moment  when  the  play  must  be  brought  to 
life  by  a  selected  body  of  interpreters.  They  will  need 
to  band  themselves  together  for  its  integral  expression 


122        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

and,  so  to  speak,  for  its  defence.  For  their  interpre- 
tation —  the  importing  of  their  personahties  —  will 
certainly  give  offence  to  the  intellectual  agreement 
upon  the  play.  This  is  bound  to  be  so,  all  intention 
apart.  The  interpreters  may  protest  that  they  remain 
in  perfect  agreement,  that  this  is  merely  how  they 
express  the  preliminary  opinion  arrived  at  in  common. 
Now  the  measure  of  the  difference  between  the  two 
things,  as  it  will  appear  to  the  critical  listener,  is  the 
measure  of  the  importance  of  the  human  factor  in  any 
problem.  If  the  critic  had  not  exercised  his  brains  on 
the  matter  first,  and  in  conjunction  with  the  interpreter, 
he  would  probably  take  the  protested  identity  of  opinion 
and  expression  for  granted.  But  now  it  will  seem  to 
him  almost  fantastic  that  men  can  so  deceive  them- 
selves as  to  imagine  this  thing  they  so  apparently  are  to 
be  of  a  piece  with  their  mental  pretensions.  Well,  let 
him  analyse  and  prove  the  discrepancy  if  he  can.  We 
are  now  at  a  point  where  mere  argument  no  longer 
avails;  it  would  only  lead  to  a  re-stating  of  agreement. 
So  the  objector  must  illustrate,  must  interpret  in  his 
turn.  And  then  he  in  his  turn  will  provide  the  exhibi- 
tion of  inconsistency. 

But  at  this  stage  something  else  may  happen.    The 
process  of  interpreting  may  work  a  genuine  change  of 
opinion;  first,  and  perhaps  but  half-con- 
The  sciously,  perhaps  quite  unconsciously,   in 

of  th?*^°°  the  interpreters  themselves;  then,  by  the 
interpreter  ^ir?^it  of  the  interpretation,  in  their  critics, 
by  the  play  ^^e  are  trenching  now  upon  discovery  of  the 
extent  to  which  an  actor  is  a  dramatist's 
collaborator,  of  the  extent  to  which  an  idea  is  in 
such  a  case  only  completed  by  its  expression.  This 
is  slippery  ground;  but  upon  it,  for  whatever  reason, 
the  biggest  ])luywrights  and  the  poorest  stand  closest 
togclhcT.  The  emptier  a  play,  of  course,  the  more 
easily   can   an   interpreter  of  creative  instincts  fill   it 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       123 

with  his  own  personality;  though  this  habit,  it  may 
be  said,  will  as  a  rule  seriously  disable  him  from  the 
tackling  of  more  commanding  stuff.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  greater  the  play  the  more  easily  it  will 
accommodate  the  height  and  breadth  of  an  interpreter's 
legitimate  endeavour.  One  turns  for  instances  to  the 
recognized  classics,  the  Greeks,  the  Elizabethans,  with 
their  manifold  and  divergent  interpreting  by  scholars 
and  actors,  both.  We  must  remember,  though,  that 
distance  lends  these  things  the  enchantment  of  an  ob- 
scurity of  their  surface  meaning,  even  while  time  may 
deepen  and  widen  the  bearings  of  their  philosophy. 
The  Elizabethans  were  not  drawn  to  dispute,  as  we 
are,  over  "Hamlet,"  because  the  indications  of  the 
character  had  a  contemporary,  perhaps  a  very  topical, 
clearness  to  them.  Language  alone  is  an  uncertain 
register  of  all  but  the  simplest  and  most  material 
things.  It  loses  veracity  with  time,  as  a  colour  fades 
and  turns.  We  must  in  any  case  translate  a  poem  or  a 
play  from  the  past  even  as  we  translate  it  from  one 
language  to  another;  and  where  the  meaning  of  the 
original,  made  misty  by  time,  can  be  questioned  the 
translator  has  freer  play.  He  may  even  make  a  mis- 
translation his  own,  and  so  bind  us  to  it  that  we  reject 
its  correction  —  witness  our  preference  for  the  mistakes 
in  the  English  Bible.  And  it  appears  therefore  that  the 
great  playwright  is  not  he  who  can  define  his  meaning 
most  rigidly,  but  he  who  has  planted  in  his  play  ideas 
vital  enough  to  bear  development,  to  demand  develop- 
ment, yet  to  defy  both  belittling  and  falsification. 
This  may  seem  an  easy  truism  to  enunciate.  But  when 
we  come  to  its  application,  under  such  conditions  as 
our  seminar  will  provide,  its  import  is  apparent  and  will 
become  the  high  test  of  every  play's  value,  and  our 
response  to  it  a  measure  of  the  drama 's  educational  use. 
The  kernel  of  the  seminar's  work  will  be  the  discov- 
ery and  development  with  regard  to  each  play  of  the 


124         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

possibilities  of  this  collaboration  between  playwright 
and  interpreter.  Note  that  the  discovery  must  always 
be  a  fresh  and  a  genuine  discovery.  It  always  can  be; 
for  each  new  body  of  interpreters  is  new  material  to  be 
worked  in,  even  though  the  play  itself  be  well  quarried; 
and  so  the  development,  if  genuine,  will  differ  naturally 
with  each  change  of  interpretation.  Nor  will  it  matter 
if  the  would-be  collaborators  range  for  a  time  widely 
and  perversely  beyond  the  limits  of  the  dramatist's 
intention.  They  will  thus  best  discover  their  own 
limitations.  The  retreat  within  its  obvious  boundaries, 
the  reaction  to  a  sober  consolidation  of  expression,  may 
then  exhibit  the  play 's  own.  It  can  be  seen  —  given  a 
play  wxll  charged  with  vitality  of  idea,  a  well-balanced 
fluid  gathering  of  interpreters  and  critics,  and  a  con- 
ductor apt  both  to  provoke  differences  and  to  reconcile 
them,  with  a  keen  sense,  too,  of  the  direction  and  goal 
of  the  work  —  what  scope  there  is  for  a  struggle  of 
minds  and  temperaments.  From  which  obscurity 
some  enlightenment  should  come. 

What  sort  of  play  should  be  selected  for  this  pur- 
pose.'^ It  is  easier  to  determine  the  various  sorts  one 
would  rule  out.  A  play  whose  characters  were  unre- 
sponsive to  analysis  by  nature  or  by  fault  would  be  of 
liLlle  use  to  us.  A  play  making  cai-ly  demands  for  its 
realization  upon  sheer  rhetoric  or  external  graces  would 
not  be  of  much  more.  It  is  odd  to  be  ruling  out  A 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream  and,  say.  The  Doctor  s 
Dilemma  for  very  much  the  same  reason,  but  one 
reasonably  could.  For  a  lesson  in  beauty  of  diction 
A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  is  hardly  to  be  sur- 
passed. The  would-be  ]K)litical  public  speaker  who 
neglects  the  study  of  the  lechniciuc  of  The  Doctor's 
Dilemma,  of  Major  Barbara,  and  ^lan  and  Superinan 
deserves  to  remain  int^tVeciive.  But  not  the  great- 
est bardolater  (as  ]\Ir.  Shaw  has  nicknamed  ilie  tribe) 
would  contend  that  the  characters  of  Theseus,  Lysan- 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       125 

der,  Hermia,  and  the  rest  would  repay  much  analysis 
(Bottom  the  weaver  might!) ;  while  most  of  the  Shavian 
drama  calls  for  interpretative  collaboration  of  a  sort 
so  clearly  defined  in  the  text  as  to  be  scarcely  suscep- 
tible to  argument  at  all.  That  is  to  say,  there  is  apt  to 
be  very  little  written  between  the  lines. 

Now,  in  choosing  a  play  for  our  seminar  this  particu- 
lar quality  of  workmanship  will  obviously  be  valuable. 
If  it  is  to  be  found  exemplified  in  Shaw's  work  we 
should  look  perhaps  to  Candida,  John  BulVs  Other 
Island,  Blanco  Posnet,  and  in  parts  of  Getting  Married. 
But  the  supreme  exemplar  of  the  method  is  probably 
Tchekov,  of  whom  it  may  almost  be  said  that  he  has 
put  more  between  the  lines  than  in  the  text  itself.  The 
words  of  The  Three  Sisters,  or  The  Cherry  Orchard 
are  indeed  but  symbols,  each  sentence  merely  a  pre- 
scription by  which  the  actor  prepares  the  intended 
effect,  very  much  more  being  left  to  his  perception  and 
discretion  than  the  forceful  elocution  of  his  speeches 
based  upon  a  generally  correct  realization  of  the  char- 
acter. When  Mr.  Shaw,  therefore,  describes  his  Heart- 
break House  as  a  fantasia  in  the  Russian  manner,  and 
thus  seems  to  challenge  comparison  with  Tchekov, 
he  omits  (no  doubt  because  it  does  n't  greatly  interest 
him:  his  attention  is  to  content)  consideration  of  this 
question  of  technique,  a  most  imjiortant  one  for  the 
interpreter.  The  one  method  of  writing,  it  may  be,  can 
result  in  as  good  a  play  as  the  other;  though,  by  the 
rule  that  the  more  you  ask  of  an  actor  the  more  you 
may  get  from  him,  Tchekov 's  work,  complete  in  per- 
formance, will  acquire  certain  virtues  that  Shaw's 
must  lack.  One  might  offer  as  a  proof  of  this  the 
contrary  demonstration  that  while  Tchekov 's  plays 
inappropriately  acted  are  quite  unintelligible,  Shaw's 
need  never,  at  least,  be  misunderstood.  And  though 
we  class  his  plays  mostly  as  modern  comedy  they  call 
primarily  for  heroic  treatment. 


126         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

An  instance  of  the  two  methods  much  less  violently 
contrasted  can  be  found  in  the  work  of  a  single  author 
by  turning  to  the  volume  of  Sir  James  Barrie's  plays 
containing  The  Twelve  Pound  Look  and  The  Will. 
Apart  from  the  fact  that  the  first  is  a  masterpiece  — 
had  one  to  instance  perfection  on  this  scale  in  its  adap- 
tation of  means  to  end  one  could  hardly  do  better  than 
name  it  —  while  the  second  is,  perhaps,  worthy  of  its 
author  but  no  more,  it  is  most  instructive  to  project 
both  plays  towards  performance  as  one  reads  them; 
one  should,  of  course,  never  read  a  play  otherwise. 
The  Tivelve  Pound  Look,  for  all  the  necessary  sparse- 
ness  of  its  dialogue,  is  essentially  a  "full"  play.  You 
gather  that  what  the  characters  say  is  but  a  small 
though  significant  part  of  all  that  they  think  and  feel; 
you  follow  them  off  the  stage  and  back  through  the 
years  with  ease;  half  a  dozen  more  plays,  it  seems, 
might  be  written  about  them.  While  in  The  Will  all 
is  well  said  and  well  done;  but  then  and  there  it  is  ob- 
viously done  with. 

Of  two  such  plays,  therefore,  it  is  patent  which  is  the 
better  fitted  for  the  purpose  of  our  seminar.  One 
could  continue,  of  course,  to  canvass  through  modern 
drama  for  the  more  and  less  suitable;  and  the  individ- 
ual method  of  each  dramatist  and  his  variation  from 
type  will  always  be  worth  consideration  in  the  light  of 
any  particular  seminar's  composition. 

But  for  a  normal  illustration  of  the  work  let  us 
imagine  the  collective  studying  of  such  a  play  as  John 
Galsworthy 's  "  Strife."  It  would  probably 
*'  Strife  "  answer  the  current  demand  very  well.  It 
*^n°exam^e  ^^  "°^  over-encumbered  with  dialogue, 
an  examp  e  ^^^  characters  are  within  the  personal 
observation  of  most  of  us,  and  in  themselves  not 
primarily  difficult  of  assumption.  It  is  a  play  of  no 
very  violent  twists  and  turns;  delicate,  occasionally, 
but  not  over-subtle   in  its  psychology,  homogeneous 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       127 

in  idea,  its  two  main  divisions  are  simply  contrasted, 
and  its  general  effect  is  one  of  mass.  There  would  be 
no  need  to  spend  much  time  in  arriving  at  intellectual 
agreement  upon  its  meaning.  This  is  plain  enough. 
Objective  criticism  of  its  characters  might  detain  us 
longer.  It  would  be  pertinent,  of  course,  to  discuss 
their  type  and  their  truth  to  type  before  impersona- 
tion began  to  individualize  them.  But  without  much 
delay  we  could  begin  to  bring  the  play  to  life. 

So  the  struggle  can  start  at  once.  In  the  first  act 
typical  difficulties  and  opportunities  alike  present  them- 
selves. For  most  of  the  parts  there  is  little  material  in 
the  way  of  dialogue.  The  interpreter  will  have  a  hard 
task  to  hold  his  conception  of  the  character  intact  and 
to  strike  its  note  surely  when  his  turn  comes.  He  will 
be  caught  at  under-emphasis  —  an  offence  against  his 
fellows,  since  it  denies  them  support;  at  over-emphasis 
—  a  sin  against  the  unity  of  the  scene  if  by  any  too 
highly-coloured  effect  he  shadows  his  part's  surround- 
ings in  which  effects  of  greater  importance  may  be 
more  patiently  preparing.  The  discovery  that  all  parts 
develop  in  a  different  ratio  according  to  their  nature 
and  their  importance  to  the  play,  that  no  parts  develop 
with  any  constancy  of  pace  (it  may  be  necessary  to 
wait  half  a  scene,  half  the  play,  and  then,  in  a  few 
seconds,  gather  up  all  the  preparation  and  elucidate  its 
intention  in  a  sentence  or  so,  for  that  matter  by  a 
change  of  attitude  or  a  gesture)  —  this  discovery  may 
well  reduce  any  novice  to  a  puzzled  impotence.  The 
discernment  of  one's  place  in  the  scheme,  patent  to 
the  looker-on,  is  lost  in  the  excitement  and  concentra- 
tion of  partaking.  Tact  of  emphasis  is  hard  enough  to 
come  by;  let  any  pianist  bear  witness.  But  when  to 
this  accuracy  is  added  the  further  demand  for  an 
observant  variety  and  so  apparent  a  spontaneity  that 
the  qualification  must  be  forgotten;  and  when  this 
whole  performance  has  to  be  given  upon  an  instru- 


128        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

ment  so  fallible  as  one's  emotional  self  it  will  be  seen 
that  something  more  than  sheer  skill  is  needed. 

Moreover,  the  sparsely-speaking  part  encourages  the 
interpreter  in  vagaries.     He  has  spare  time  to  fill  in. 

He  must  at  all  costs  keep  the  silent  inter- 

J.^^  .  vals  alive  by  presenting  in  them  a  clearly 

^art^^^      defined    figure.     And    here    the    dramatist 

may  most  easily  have  played  him  false.  It 
is  simple,  if  you  can  draw  character  in  dialogue  at 
all,  to  draw  it  in  dialogue  that  is  both  sustained 
and  consecutive.  One  differentiates  the  terms  because 
so  many  dramatists  in  practice  do  not.  For  fear  of 
letting  a  character  slip  from  their  grasp  they  will  fill 
up  every  crack  of  its  development,  so  to  speak,  with 
words;  and  thus  they  rob  it  of  life  past  any  actor's  re- 
covering. For  words  are  but  a  part,  at  times  the  minor 
part,  of  the  true  dialogue.  Nevertheless,  the  unspoken 
things  are  not  the  actor's  concern  merely;  the  drama- 
tist must  not  leave  them  as  a  provision  of  empty  spaces 
and  opportunity.  He  can,  and  he  must,  by  miplica- 
tion  convey  to  the  actors  these  complementaries  of  the 
dialogue.  If  he  cannot  dictate  them  positively  —  and 
this  is  difficult,  for  words  are  his  weapons  of  precision  — 
he  must  at  least  safeguard  his  characters  against  mis- 
interpretation. There  are  means  enough  to  this  end. 
The  spoken  sentences  can,  of  course,  be  made  to  do  it  by 
the  form  and  the  colour  of  their  phrasing  quite  apart 
from  their  surface  meaning.  But  the  elaboration  of 
physical  "business"  will,  on  the  whole. 
The  fail  one  here.     There  are,  naturally,  cer- 

placing  of  a  |_.^jn  things  which  can  be  marked  to  be 
^m^ih^^^^  done  without  comment,  and  if  their  doing 
scheme  of  is  effectively  placed  they  can  be  eloquent, 
the  play  There  are  things  of  which  later  comment 

will  comi)lete  the  significance.  These  are 
legitimate  devices  and  may  be  made  positive  indications 
of  character.    But  to  detail,  for  an  instance,  the  gestures, 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       129 

the  expression  of  face  with  which  a  man  shall  receive 
the  news  of  his  son's  death  is,  for  the  dramatist,  as  great 
a  misconception  of  liis  share  of  the  whole  task  as 
it  is  if  he  describes  his  heroine  as  five  foot  seven  in 
height,  with  golden  hair  and  blue  eyes.  If  these 
are  essentials  for  the  heroine  it  is  a  doll  he  wants, 
not  an  actress.  In  the  same  way  all  method  of  ex- 
pression is  a  matter  for  the  actor,  and  to  dictate  this  to 
him  is  as  bad  a  crevice-filling  as  the  multiplication  of 
words.  No,  the  dramatist's  part  is  neither  so  obvious 
nor  so  simple.  He  has  certainly  to  indicate  to  the  actor 
what  to  express,  but  the  freer  he  leaves  him  as  to  how 
to  express  it  the  more  he  demands  from  the  actor  and 
the  greater  must  be  the  value  of  the  response.  There- 
fore, for  him  the  method  of  implication  is  the  right  one. 
And  apart  from  the  primary  uses  of  dialogue,  of  things 
said  by  a  character,  there  are  the  things  said  in  reply, 
the  things  said  of  one  character  by  another;*  there  is, 
more  importantly,  the  position  of  a  character  in  the 
scheme  of  the  play  and  the  relation  to  its  fellows  — 
all  these  devices  are  open.  The  actor  should  find  him- 
self like  a  piece  on  a  chess-board,  with  only  certain 
moves  and  certain  attitudes  possible  for  him.  This 
ascertained  position  must  be  the  foundation  of  the 
actor's  study,  as  it  was  of  the  dramatist's  intention 
precedent  to  any  writing  of  dialogue  at  all.  There 
is,  finally,  the  character's  play  of  movement  and  his 
relation,  active  and  passive,  physical  and  emotional, 
to  the  particular  scenes  he  is  a  part  of.     This  it  is  the 

*  Though  these  again  are  either  less  valuable  when  the  play's 
whole  account  is  made  up  if  they  are  so  positively  the  dramatist's 
own  point  of  view,  so  obvious  an  indication  to  actor  and  audience  as 
to  re-dramatise  the  character  that  says  them,  or  if  they  introduce 
yet  another  complication  in  the  allowance  that  must  be  made  for 
another  dramatised  point  of  view.  This  last  plan  is  legitimate  and 
amusing.  If  Browning  had  made  The  Ring  and  the  Book  into  a  play 
he  would,  seemingly,  have  committed  himself  to  this  method.  But 
It  wants  using  sparingly,  or  with  great  skill. 


130        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

actor's  chief  work  to  elaborate.  The  dramatist  must 
have  prompted  and  safeguarded  him  by  the  scheming 
of  the  scene.  Its  writing,  as  we  have  noted,  is  only  a 
part  of  the  business.  This  scheming  can  be  done 
simply,  it  can  be  done  subtly.  In  its  simplicity  it  is 
probably  achieved  by  most  dramatists  by  instinct;  by 
what  we  call,  in  this  connection,  the  dramatic  instinct, 
the  gift  without  which  even  the  best  writers  fail  to  be- 
come tolerable  playwrights.  It  is  shown  in  never  for- 
getting that  your  character  is  there,  in  losing  no  chance, 
when,  by  reference  no  less  than  by  speech,  he  may  be 
observed  and  felt.  He  must  pull  his  weight  in  the 
scene.  He  must  be  kept  consistent,  denied  no  oppor- 
tunity that  he  would  not  deny  himself.  He  must  do 
nothing  misleading;  nor  useless  —  for  that  will  be 
misleading.  He  must  be  used  with  economy:  that  is 
to  say,  he  must  have  no  empty  moments.  There  must 
never  be  a  time  during  the  scene  when,  however 
silent  the  character,  it  is  not  possible  to  ask  "What 
are  you  thinking.'*  If  you  did  speak,  now,  what  sort  of 
thing  would  you  say.'*"  and  when  the  actor  could  not 
reply,  but  must  reply  according  to  the  dramatist's 
intention.  A  character  that  is  not  a  living  part  of  the 
scene  is  a  dead  drag  on  it.  But  all  this  is  simple  —  the 
commonplace  of  the  dramatic  art. 

For  subtlety  in  this  scheming  of  scenes  we  may  turn 

for  an  example  to  any  of  the  four  great  plays  of  Tche- 

kov.    Of  them  it  is  possible  to  say  that  the 

^  ^?  J  interplay  of  motive  which  makes  up  the 

parent  de-  .•  r       4.  j  i       •     1 

velopment       action  so  tar  transcends  any  mechanical 

of  plot  rules,    is    so    much    the    outcome   of    the 

from  the  idios^mcrasies  of  the  characters  concerned 

characters  (though  one  doubts  if  any  play  could  be 
and  scenes  •,,  .  •.  j  'c  ii 

thems  1    s      ^^  written,  yet  it  does  seem  as  11  the  mean- 
ing of  the  whole  were  but  a  quite  fortui- 
tous outcome  of  the  independent  action  of  the  parts), 
that  the   scenes  are  positively  unactable,  their  sound 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       131 

makes  no  sense,  unless  a  basic  understanding  of  the 
characters  has  been  achieved;  and  this  achievement  is 
only  to  be  reached  by  those  who  can  relate  characters 
and  play  itself  to  the  larger  drama  of  Russian  life,  of 
which  Tchekov's  mind  was  so  perfectly  the  mirror  that 
he  interpreted  it  as  he  would  have  his  characters  in- 
terpret the  purpose  of  his  plays,  the  broken  lights  (never 
too  broken  if  true)  finally  giving  the  full  view.  No  other 
plays  known  to  the  writer  ask,  as  Tchekov's  do,  for  the 
collaboration  of  the  actor.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say 
that  they  are  libretti  waiting  for  music.  Yet  they  are 
masterpieces  of  their  kind,  and  of  a  very  noble  kind. 
It  is  no  degradation  to  a  dramatist  to  confess  him- 
self so  dependent.  They  are  a  technical  triumph,  to 
say  no  more.  For,  granted  they  can  be  misinterpreted, 
there  could  be  no  doubt  then  where  the  failure  was. 
And  if,  as  complete  works  of  art,  they  defy  translation, 
since  so  much  of  their  beauty  and  purpose  cannot  be 
written  down,  cannot  be  packed,  so  to  speak,  and 
freighted;  that  is  true  of  most  fine  poetry,  too.  They 
can  stand,  however,  to  any  one  as  object  lessons.  One 
finds  in  them  an  example  of  the  length  to  which  the 
method  of  unsustained  and  inconsecutive  dialogue  can 
be  carried.  It  does  not  follow,  of  course,  that  there  is 
not  sufficient  virtue  in  a  more  moderate  use  of  the 
device.  We  need  not  try  to  define  how  much  material 
should  be  left  in  the  rough  for  the  actor  to  mould,  nor 
what  should  be  the  exact  proportion  of  implication  to 
definition  in  speech.  Even  if  some  law  were  discover- 
able —  like  the  one  which  controls  the  floating  of  an 
iceberg,  two  thirds  to  be  submerged  to  one  above  the 
water  —  we  should  get  more  fun  from  our  ignorance 
of  it,  and  from  the  topplings  that  must  result  from  the 
empirical  practices  of  art. 

But  —  and  so  to  end  this  long  parenthesis  —  it  is 
easy  to  see  how  much  of  a  dramatist's  skill  must  go 
into  the  implications  he  provides  for  the  more  sparsely 


132         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

dialogued  characters,  and  what  skill  an  interpreter 
needs  to  discern  them.  And  in  such  a  play  as  "Strife," 
for  instance,  it  matters  very  much  that  they  should 
be  accurately  discerned. 

We  have  said  that  it  is  a  play  of  mass  effect.  It 
may  seem  to  go  without  saying  that  a  dramatist  has 
no  right  to  employ  masses  without  being  cer- 
J'^^.  tain  that  in  themselves  they  will  be  effec- 
tive. But  one  can  conceive  of  good  plays 
—  and  find  plenty  of  poor  ones  —  in  which  minor 
parts  do  little  more  than  "feed"  (to  use  the  expressive 
theatre  slang)  the  protagonists.  The  characters  may 
be  deliberately  chosen  and  placed  so  that  they  are 
negative,  inarticulate,  appear  for  a  minute  or  two  on 
a  particular  errand,  then  disappear  for  good,  are  anony- 
mous almost.  In  this  case  their  interpreters'  disci- 
pline, and  a  sensitiveness  in  response  or  contrast  to 
the  tones  or  moods  of  the  dominant  players,  will  be 
the  most  important  thing.  And  incidentally  a  play  of 
this  sort  will  be  the  least  suited  to  co-operative  study. 
But  in  a  play  like  "Strife"  not  one  of  the  characters  is 
negligible.  The  effect  of  the  whole  is  quite  genuinely 
made  by  the  right  co-ordination  of  all  the  parts;  the 
meaning  of  the  whole  is  only  to  be  reached  by  a  correct 
accounting  for  all  the  values,  and  if  the  sum  is  wrong 
it  is  little  matter  where  it  is  wrong.  We  speak  of  an 
ideal  "Strife"  and  an  idealized  interpretation;  but,  of 
course,  no  play  was  ever  so  perfect  that  it  did  not  en- 
courage a  little  maltreatment,  no  criticism  ever  so 
refined  that  the  erring  interpreter  had  not  his  own  case 
against  it.  We  must  know  what  to  aim  for,  however, 
and  when  our  object  is  simply  study  we  may  aim  high, 
and  aim  vaguely  even.  We  have  not  a  performance  to 
think  of,  with  all  the  imperfections,  of  dramatist, 
actors,  and  audience  countering  each  other,  and  an 
air  of  limnau  tolerance  —  a  "will  lo  enjoyment"  en- 
veloping it  all.     Performance,    as  we  shall  see,  stands 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       133 

finally  for  accommodation,  compromise,  and  a  unity, 
forced  perhaps  and  unreal.  But  students  in  our  semi- 
nar may  have  their  free  fling  between  the  best  and  the 
worst  possible.  They  can  measure  themselves  very  well 
in  these  scenes  of  mechanical  complexity,  but,  on  the 
whole,  of  psychological  simplicity  (of  a  familiar  psy- 
chology, anyhow),  both  by  their  own  ability  to  con- 
ceive and  sustain  character  and,  critically,  as  against 
the  play's  own  capacity  for  expression;  once,  by  change 
and  change  again,  by  each  battling  his  way  to  accept- 
ance, the  likeliest  exponent  of  every  part  has  been 
found. 

We  are  now  in  sight  of  the  branching  of  the  paths  of 
study  and  production.     We  should  note,  incidentally, 
that  a  cast  for  the  performance  of  a  play, 
while  approaching  their  task  at  the  be-    Where 
ginning    from    this    same    standpoint    of    ftudent  and 
study,   would,   for  extrinsic  and   intrinsic       j.^. 
reasons  both,  not  be  committed  practically    company 
to  such  a  melee  of  wits  as  may  profit  the 
students.    The  actors  will  be  from  the  beginning  each 
in  his  allotted  place.     They  will  criticize  the  play  and 
not  each  other.     And,  having  forgotten,  as  the  saying 
is,  more  than  the  students  have  learnt,  or  are,  many  of 
them,  likely  to  learn,  dispute  about  technicalities  will 
mainly  be  passed  over.    They  will  come  much  more 
smoothly  to  the  point  where  dispute  ceases  and  identi- 
fication of  play  and  interpreters  begins. 

And  it  is  just  on  the  nearer  side  of  this  point  that 
the  paths  must  branch.  The  student  will  never  need 
so  to  identify  himself  except,  recoverably,  for  the  pur- 
poses of  his  study.  The  distinction  involved  is  a  fine 
one,  no  doubt,  and  operative  more  in  the  collection  of  a 
class  or  a  play's  cast  than  over  individuals.  As  we 
shall  see,  and  as  indeed  is  obvious,  a  company  perform- 
ing a  play  has  by  then  abandoned  all  critical  sense.  It 
must  be  the  conductor's  business  to  see  that  the  semi- 


134         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

nar  as  a  whole  never  does  so.  In  questions  of  sheer 
effect,  too,  the  student  will  hardly  be  concerned  in 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  feeling  —  for  instance,  among  the 
crowd  of  strikers  in  "Strife."  And  a  final  advantage  of 
this  play  and  its  kind,  for  the  purposes  of  study,  is 
that  such  questions  can  be  long  left  aside  without  the 
main  interest  being  lessened.  There  are  many  where 
such  effects  are  an  integral  part  of  the  play's  inner 
workings;  and  many,  admirable  for  study,  classics  like 
the  "Agamemnon,"  for  instance,  where  the  ritual,  the 
swing  and  the  sound  of  it,  is  bound  very  closely  with 
the  play's  mood  and  actual  meaning;  like  the  Moliere 
farces,  whose  volubility  is  most  intimate  to  their  char- 
acter. Then  the  study  of  all  poetic  plays,  and  of  prose 
plays,  too,  for  that  matter,  will  hinge  —  for  some 
more,  for  some  less  —  upon  beauty  of  execution,  with- 
out which  they  cannot  be  brought  to  life  and  so  made, 
according  to  our  definition,  the  subject  of  true  study 
at  all.  But  they  are  not  to  be  ruled  out  as  good  edu- 
cational material  for  this  reason.  Rather  the  contrary. 
It  is  for  the  student  to  realize  —  and  over  no  sort  of 
play  does  he  need  more  to  realize  —  that  an  under- 
standing of  a  poet's  work  lives  upon  sympathy  with  its 
passion,  and  that  inarticulate  sympathy  is  sympathy 
stillborn. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  choice  of  a  play 
should  depend  to  some  extent  on  the  composition  of 
the  class  and  the  disposition  and  abilities  of  the  stu- 
dents, equally  without  saying  that  every  sort  of  play  — 
every  play,  one  might  say,  ideally  —  demands  a  differ- 
ent method  of  study.  It  must  be  faced,  too,  that  just 
as  in  every  instance  the  path  of  study  and  production 
branch  at  some  point,  so  in  the  choice  of  i)lays  the 
interests  of  the  general  student  and  the  embryo  actor 
will  not,  after  a  while,  remain  identical.  The  actor, 
intent  upon  the  completer  7)rocesses  of  production,  will 
look  for  plays  upon  which  he  can  most  quickly  try  his 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       135 

skill  of  expression;  the  student  will  profit  more  by  those 
which  give  him  the  greatest  variety  of  mental  and 
emotional  exercise.  One  does  not  conceive  of  "Love's 
Labour  Lost,"  "A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  or 
"The  School  for  Scandal "  being  very  fruitful  themes  for 
dissection  and  abstract  discussion.  But  the  would-be 
actor,  though  he  were  chained  to  a  table  and  bidden 
rationalize  his  work  to  the  last  degree  possible,  would 
find  ample  opportunity  in  them  for  the  development  of 
his  sense  of  lyrical  speech,  of  comedic  phrasing.  Cer- 
tainly these  are  things  that  he  will  study  to  some  ex- 
tent apart  as  technical  exercises.  But  one  must  not 
try  to  do  too  much  of  that  sort  of  work  in  vacuo.  The 
would-be  actor  is  to  be  kept  from  acting  till  the  very 
last  moment.  But  no  one  would  advocate  that  he 
should  not  be  given  a  chance  to  co-ordinate  his  facul- 
ties before  he  takes  the  plunge;  a  swimmer  —  to  follow 
the  metaphor  through  —  needs  to  feel  his  way  in  the 
water  before  he  strikes  out. 

This  brings  up,  however,  a  question  of  quite  another 
sort  with  regard  to  the  choice  of  plays.    The  familiar 
classics  —  the  finest  in  most  cases,   that 
is  to  say  —  are  at  the  present  time  shame-      ,  e  misuse 
fully    misused    in    the    interests    of    edu-    classics 
cation.    Nothing  probably  has  so  vitiated 
our  taste  for  Shakespeare   as  the   commandeering  of 
his  great  passages  for  exercises  in  elocution  —  unless 
it  be  the  cold-blooded  dissection  of  his  plays  in  the 
professorial   study.*     If  the  classics   are   to  be  kept 
alive  their  expounders  must  first  of  all  be  kept  alive 
to  them.    They  must  preserve  for  them,  as  far  as  ever 
they  can,  a  freshness  of  eye,  ear,  and  mind.    It  would  be 

*  This  latter  process  applied  to  the  great  Greek  tragedies  robbed 
them  of  the  very  semblance  of  plays,  even,  apparently,  in  the  minds 
of  the  professors  themselves.  Professor  Gilbert  Murray's  restora- 
tion of  Euripides  to  his  place  as  a  plaj/wright  was  a  far-reaching 
service. 


136         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

well,  then,  for  an  actor  never  to  have  looked  at  "Ham- 
let" in  his  student  days  at  all.  He  had  far  better 
break  his  shins  over  "Troilus  and  Cressida."  And  fbr 
"A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  and  "The  School 
for  Scandal,"  as  we  called  them  into  service  a  while 
back  it  would  be  better  to  read  "The  Sad  Shepherd" 
and  Farquhar's  "Recruiting  Officer,"  The  risk  that  a 
nascent  judgment  might  thus  be  permanently  perverted 
would  be  very  small.  If  neglected  masterpieces  were 
rediscovered  by  this  plan,  all  the  better:  the  student 
adventurers,  just  out  of  their  apprenticeship,  would  be 
their  best  possible  sponsors.  There  would  rather  be  a 
certain  danger,  perhaps,  that,  flung  upon  examples  of 
second-rate  classic  work,  the  student  might  fall  back 
bored  and  defeated;  but  that  would  not  greatly  matter. 
And,  quite  apart  from  the  question  of  the  degradation 
of  fine  work  involved  in  their  educational  misuse,  the 
importance  of  the  classics  as  factors  in  this  sort  of 
training  is  over-estimated.  They  are  more  delectable 
meat  for  maturer  years  —  for  more  catholic  minds  — 
and  the  great  thing  is  not  to  blunt  a  man's  love  for  them. 
It  would  be  well,  too,  that  with  their  near  approach 
to  graduation  the  would-be  actors  should  be  kept  from 
the  use  of  the  plavs,  classic  or  modern, 

Til  A  I  .         '  ' 

,j  ,  which  were  a  part  of  the  repertorv  of  the 

would-be  ,  -IP  ^       p  1  •  *n 

^ctor  theatre    itseli,    and    trom    the    mnuence, 

admitted  to  therefore,  of  the  performances  of  them, 
the  play-  For  their  last  year's  work,  and  for  that 
house  at  only,  these  particular  students,  and  these 

^  only,  should  be   brought   into  the  closest 

touch  with  the  theatre  as  playhouse  —  of  which  side 
of  the  institution  we  have  yet  to  speak.  But  we 
must  presume  the  existence  there  of  favourite  perhaps 
famous  actors,  who  will  possess  methods  and  manner- 
isms of  their  own.  Now  it  is  a  truism  that  one  copies 
notliing  from  an  artist  but  his  faults.  The  tendency 
of  the  student  to  copy  will  always  be  great,  increas- 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       137 

ingly  great  if  in  this  last  year  he  becomes  an  under- 
study; nor  much  diminished,  even  though,  his  training 
done,  he  goes  to  another  theatre  to  play  those  parts 
which  the  favourite  actor  has  made  his  own,  unless  he 
has  been  deliberately  kept  from  studying  them  during 
his  pupilage.  One  needs,  indeed,  some  very  definite 
countervailing  influence  if  study  of  any  sort  in  dra- 
matic schools  is  not  to  result  in  the  transmission  of  the 
very  individual  methods  of  half  a  dozen  popular  actors 
in  an  ever-widening  circle  of  impoverishment.  And  the 
more  the  popularity  is  buttressed  by  real  ability  the 
harder  it  will  be  to  get  from  under  its  shadow. 

By  this  time,  of  course,  the  students  who  are  to 
graduate  as  actors  will  be  practically  cut  off  in  their 
work  from  those  that  are  to  pass  out  elsewhither. 
Their  study-seminars  for  this  final  year  might  well  be 
quite  self-contained  affairs.  They  should  now  be  set 
to  the  task  of  bringing  plays  to  production.  Groups 
should  be  formed  for  this  purpose,  and  split  up,  and 
differently  formed  as  often  as  possible,  by  the  teaching 
authorities.  But  the  group  might  well  elect  its  own 
conductor-producer,  and  the  work  should  be  seen  no 
more  till  it  was  at  some  near  stage  to  completion.  The 
plays,  as  aforesaid,  should  preferably  not  be  familiar 
ones.  But,  further,  the  groups  might  flesh  their  steel 
upon  completely  untried  plays,  and  upon  untried  sorts 
of  plays;  though,  as  prentices  themselves,  they  had 
better  not  be  confronted  too  exclusively  with  the  mere 
prentice  work  of  dramatists.  There  is  something  to 
be  said,  of  course,  for  an  occasional  student  produc- 
tion, home-made  from  beginning  to  end;  student  play- 
wright, actors,  costume  designers,  and  scene-painters, 
too.  But  let  us  sharply  beware  of  too  much  indulgence 
in  that  sort  of  thing.  It  has  a  specious  value.  At  its 
best  it  brings  all  concerned  into  too  narrow  a  circle, 
and  by  lowering  their  standard  of  achievement  may, 
at  its  worst,  cocker  them  up  into  a  lamentable  state 


138         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

of  self-sufficiency  and  conceit.  The  plan  works  well 
enough  with  amateurs.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  plan  of  all 
others  for  them.  They  should  be  master  of  the  pro- 
cesses they  employ  from  A  to  Z;  it  is  in  this  grasping  of 
the  whole  that  their  enjoyment  of  the  art  will  lie.  Not 
for  them,  it  stands  to  reason,  the  closer  concentra- 
tion and  more  hardly  earned  triumph  of  the  expert. 
They  must  cultivate  an  art  as  primitive  man  culti- 
vated his;  then  their  simple  pleasure  in  their  own 
success  will  be  attractive  and  allowable.  But  those 
who  mean  to  take  a  worker's  place  in  the  organized  re- 
public of  the  theatre,  and  to  be  inheritors  and  sharers 
of  the  achievement  of  their  forbears  and  fellows  must, 
from  the  beginning,  measure  their  own  weakness  against 
the  finest  strength  they  can  find. 

For  students  in  their  final  year  plays  to  experiment 
with  could  without  difficulty  be  found.  We  shall  see 
later  how  this  requirement  will  fit  in  with 
Experimen-  one  particular  need  of  the  theatre  as  a 
tal  work  for  ^yj^Qjg  ^^j  ^f  plays  experimental  in 
students  in      ^,  ,  i  .  .  i 

their  last         themselves  one  may  make  yet  another  use. 

year  We  must  remember  always  the  conserva- 

tism that  any  institution  breeds;  and  the 
better  it  is  organized,  the  more  comprehensively, 
the  stronger  will  be  the  growth.  Conservatism,  if  an 
eye  be  kept  to  its  drawbacks,  is  not  a  bad  thing  for 
the  drama.  So  much,  at  least,  this  book  in  its  very 
theme  supposes.  The  English-spoken  drama  certainly  at 
this  moment  suffers  from  a  lack  of  it  —  calls  loudly  for 
any  sort  of  organization  at  all.  But  let  us  see,  by  all 
means,  to  a  provision  of  the  means  of  freedom,  of  legiti- 
mate revolt.  For  no  one  will  deny  that  students,  gradu- 
ating frcmi  tliis  school  to  its  i)layhouse  side,  or  leaving  for 
any  other  j)layhouse  of  the  sort,  will  tend  to  accept,  with 
little  question,  the  routine  they  find  there.  Routine  of 
action  certainly  they  must  accept.  But  ihe  machinery 
of  a  theatre  is  so  elaborate  that  no  artistic  activity  need 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       139 

feel  cramped  by  it.  It  is  routine  of  mind  that  would  be 
the  danger.  Some  natures  can  always  contrive  to  keep 
a  freshness  and  rebelliousness  of  mind,  and  any  insti- 
tution will  be  lucky  if  it  can  attract  and  hold  them, 
active  and  unspoiled.  But  for  those  readier  to  accept 
convention  —  likely,  too,  to  prosper  best  by  following 
it  —  it  may  be  said  that  their  fruitfullest  time  of  in- 
dividual development  will  be  when  they  have  finished 
their  formal  training,  are  pre-eminent  on  that  scale 
and  have  not  yet  had  to  sing  small  in  competition  with 
their  elders.  Now  we  have  done  our  best,  by  every 
device,  to  keep  the  student  actor  free  from  the  teaching 
which  will  force  him,  at  the  teacher's  convenience,  into 
a  rut,  into  the  deepest  ploughed,  directest  way  to 
some  sort  of  accomplishment.  We  can  do  him  a  com- 
plementary service  by  setting  him  in  this  last  spurt  of 
his  training  at  a  few  quite  impracticable  and  impossible 
fences,  in  the  shape  of  plays  that  are  (as  the  saying 
goes)  not  plays  at  all,  and  at  some  whose  title  to  prac- 
ticability has  been  lost,  or  has  yet  to  be  proved.  It 
is  a  pity  even  —  so  much  is  the  routine  mind  to  be 
dreaded  in  training  —  that  he  cannot  come  at  these 
fences  in  company  with  the  general  student,  with  his 
(presumably)  still  less  particularized  point  of  view.  And 
it  would  always  be  worth  while  to  consider,  instance 
by  instance,  whether  the  two  interests  could  not  be 
combined. 

It  does  little  harm,  of  course,  to  the  general  student 
to  be  working  at  a  play  in  common  theatrical  use. 
Indeed,  if  he  is  slow  of  dramatic  instinct,  and  unready 
at  bringing  the  thing  to  life  by  impersonation,  it  may 
be  a  necessary  help  to  him  to  have  seen  the  play  in 
full  being  and  at  its  best.  There  need  be  little  fear  but 
that  the  method  of  work  we  have  outlined  for  our 
seminars  will  effectively  prevent  their  degenerating 
over  such  a  play  —  as  far,  at  least,  as  the  slow  student 
is  concerned  —  into  facile  and  flashy  imitation  of  act- 


140         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

ing.  But  with  the  right,  and  a  rightly  assorted,  collec- 
tion of  students  it  should  be  possible  to  find  work  of 
an  unconventionally  dramatic  form  which  the  student 
actor  could  approach,  to  his  continuing  advantage,  in 
fellowship  with  minds  more  detached  from  the  theatre, 
in  its  now  narrowing  sense,  than  his  own.  We  can 
hardly  over-estimate  the  benefit  to  everyone  con- 
cerned of  this  assortment  of  minds  and  purposes. 
Particularism  is  the  curse  of  the  arts.  In  the  theatre 
it  is  largely  a  needless  curse,  so  direct  is  the  reflection  of 
life  in  the  art's  process.  From  the  theatre  as  school 
particularism  must  at  all  costs  be  banished.  The  keen- 
ness of  the  actor  student,  with  all  his  technical  training 
so  ready  to  his  hand,  would  make  of  such  a  play  as 
"Strife"  too  slick  a  mouthful  altogether  were  he  not 
to  be  checked  and  his  cheerfulness  disgruntled  by  minds 
more  intent  on  the  things  themselves,  which  the  play 
at  its  best  does  but  reflect;  though,  again,  these  minds 
might  remain  unperceptive  of  half  the  play's  meaning 
were  they  not  stirred  by  the  brightness  of  its  reflection 
in  this  keenness  to  interpret. 

At  what  point  this  mixed  company  will  have  made 
the  most  of  "Strife"  and  its  like  experiment  must 
determine;  and,  indeed,  every  such  semi- 
The  limits  jjg^j.  should  be  in  itself  an  experiment.  A 
use  to^he  P^^^'  ^^^er  all,  is  only  complete  in  its  per- 
seminar  formance  to  an  audience.     It  might  some- 

times be  well,  after  lively  discussion  has 
thrown  up  the  best  possible  cast  for  the  play,  to 
remit  it  to  such  a  caucus  for  final  shaping  in  terms 
of  a  performance,  the  whole  seminar  meeting  again 
to  consider  it  finally  in  those  terms.  Where  this 
trespasses  against  the  general  forl)id(Hng  of  premature 
acting  one  must  consider  whether  one  sliould  not  make 
it  one  of  those  exceptions  that  are  the  life  of  all  rules. 
Or  one  miglil  possil)ly  devise  some  pseudo-performance 
which  this  ideally  critical  audience  could  have  licence 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       141 

to  interrupt  by  their  comments  at  suitable  points. 
And  the  advantage  in  this  connection  of  the  "imprac- 
ticable" play,  or  the  play  that  was  not  a  play  at  all, 
would  lie  just  in  its  natural  resistance  to  the  ordinary 
conditions  of  performance.  Set  a  seminar  to  work 
upon  a  Platonic  dialogue,  upon  Lowes  Dickinson's 
"A  Modern  Symposium";  or,  again,  upon  the  "Evi- 
dence before  a  Royal  Commission,"  the  verbatim  re- 
port of  a  trial,  or  a  Government  interview  with  Labour 
leaders  —  set  them  to  extract  from  that  sort  of  material 
its  last  ounce  of  effective  meaning.  The  verbatim  re- 
port in  particular  would  have  its  use.  It  would  furnish 
for  the  actor  a  chance  to  learn  where  the  substance  of 
drama  lies,  what  it  is  that  he  must  learn  to  divine  be- 
neath the  finely  worked  surface,  prose  or  poetry,  of 
the  plays  that  are  plays.  And  the  more  critical  mind 
may  come  to  distinguish,  in  the  light  of  an  artistic  test, 
poverty  of  matter,  flaws  in  the  fabric,  pitiful  fooleries 
which  passed  muster  for  good  sense  upon  the  important 
occasion  itself,  which  would  then  have  passed  muster 
with  him  perhaps;  but  will  not  now,  not  in  this  labora- 
tory where  his  faculties  are  fined  to  their  utmost  per- 
ceptiveness. 

These  seminars  of  play  study,  then,  are  to  be  the 
centre  of  the  school's  work,  the  hub  upon  which  the 
whole  idea  of  the  theatre  as  school  revolves.  It  would 
be  absurd  at  this  juncture  to  try  and  plan  their  pro- 
ceedings in  greater  detail.  If  the  idea  of  them  is  vital 
they  would  in  time  develop  in  many  forms.  If  it  is 
not,  then  the  centre  of  the  theatre  as  school  would 
shift,  and  with  the  shifting  we  should  probably  soon 
be  back  at  our  present  conception  of  the  theatre  as 
playhouse  alone  —  and,  though  it  is  unimportant, 
the  writing  of  this  book  would  have  been  wasted 
labour. 

The  subsidiary  work  of  the  school  we  need  now  do 
little  more  than  catalogue.    One  looks  for  lectures  on 


142         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

all  sorts  of  subjects  that  come  within  the  compass  of 
the  theatre's  influence.     These    are   more   numerous, 

perhaps,  than  might  be  supposed.  The 
Subsidiary  history  of  the  theatre  itself  is  important 
school  ^^    those  who  work  for  it,  and  of    some 

lectures  etc.   interest  as  a  side  issue  in  sociology.     The 

history  of  costume  is  akin,  and  here  would 
be  the  proper  centre  of  its  study  —  for  the  making 
and  wearing  of  clothes  is  no  small  part  of  its 
understanding.  There  is,  too,  more  practical  knowl- 
edge stored  in  the  brains  of  designers,  costumiers, 
and  actors  than  goes  to  the  compiling  of  dozens  of 
prettily  illustrated  books  on  the  subject.  We  should 
need,  then,  a  lecture  theatre  and  a  library.  There 
would  also  be  studios,  where  practical  work  was  done 
in  designing  and  making  costumes  and  scenery.  But 
these  would  be  in  effect  the  workshops  of  the  theatre 
as  playhouse,  and  it  would  be  a  question  how  much 
time  and  opportunity  could  be  given  to  these  students, 
who  would,  one  fears,  be  apt  to  throng  them  rather 
overwhelmingly  if  no  barriers  were  put  up.  In  this 
connection  several  things  must  be  considered.  Train- 
ing in  the  elements  of  design  in  drawing  or  painting  is, 
of  course,  no  part  of  the  theatre's  business.  Students 
would  arrive  so  far  equipped.  How  much  further  they 
could  be  usefully  taken  by  working  at  costume  designs 
on  paper  or  at  scenery  in  models  it  is  hard  to  say,  but 
probably  not  very  far.  Facility  in  making  pretty  pic- 
tures on  paper  is  just  what  the  theatre  does  not  want  to 
teach  them,  and  a  reliance  upon  the  good  effect  of 
model  scenes  is  a  trap  in  which  it  is  fatally  easy  to  be 
caught.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  clear  that  dresses 
cannot  be  made  and  scenery  painted  in  bulk  merely 
for  practice.  The  likely  solution  would  be  a  system  of 
"going  through  the  shops"  by  a  selected  number  of 
workers,  who  were  giving  their  entire  attention  to  the 
work;  by  an  even  narrower  selection,  there  might  be 


PLAN  OF  THEATRE  AS  SCHOOL       143 

set  up  quite  advantageously  a  system  of  definite 
apprenticeship.  The  advantages  of  this  will  be  better 
seen  when  we  come  to  considering  the  workshops 
themselves  in  connection  with  the  theatre  as  playhouse. 


Chapter  IV 
Tlie  Theatre  as  Playhouse 

THE  division  between  the  theatre  as  school  and 
the  theatre  as  playhouse  is  a  convenient  one  for 
the  purposes  of  discussion;  otherwise  it  should 
have  only  a  very  uncertain  existence.  On  the  school 
side  of  the  boundary  there  should  certainly  remain 
the  general  students  (as  we  have  called  them)  and, 
needless  to  say,  the  more  shifting  crowd  of  people 
who  might  be  working  with  special  objects  of  study  or 
research.  Passing  through  it  at  the  proper  time  would 
be  the  students  for  whom,  in  one  way  or  another,  the 
theatre  was  to  be  liveliliood;  though  not  all  of  them, 
not  many  of  them  probably,  could  graduate  into  the 
playhouse  service  of  this  particular  theatre.  But  for 
the  fully  qualified  members  of  the  theatre  staff  — 
actors,  producers,  designers  —  no  boundary  should 
exist. 

For  this  will  be  the  determining  feature  of  the  the- 
atre as  playhouse,  its  relation  to  the  larger,  the  in- 
clusive,  entity  of  the  theatre  as  school. 
No  definite      Public  performances  will  be  found  there,  in 
boundary         quantity  as  in  the  theatres  we  now  know, 

e     een  -^  qualitv  improved  we  may  hope.  Plans  for 

playhouse  ,  .^  ".     /      .  i  ^  i 

and  school  ^^^^^  particular  improvement  abound,  and 
later  it  may  be  worth  while  to  discuss  their 
mechanism;  one  must  never  underrate  the  importance  in 
the  theatre  of  the  macliinery  of  organization.  But  we  are 
now  to  think  not  of  plans  but  of  persons.  Let  us  imagine, 
to  begin  with,  a  playhouse  company  for  whom  perform- 
ances will  not  be  Ihe  one  and  only  goal.  For  our  play- 
house is  still  a  part  of  the  theatre  as  school,  part  of  an 
institution  intended  for  the  study  of  dramatic  art  and 
only  incidentally  for  its  exhibition  —  an  exemplary  the- 
atre.   Not,  on  the  other  hand,  that  we  are  to  consider 


THE  THEATRE  AS  PLAYHOUSE       145 

the  acting  company  as  teachers,  who  may  (as  did  the 
gymnasium  instructor  of  our  schooldays)  occasionally, 
as  a  relief  to  themselves  and  their  pupils,  indulge  in  a 
little  display.     It  has  already  been  made  clear  that 
teaching  of  that  sort  is  to  have  the  smallest  part  in  the 
school.     They  rather  remain  students,  fellow-students 
with  their  juniors,  taking  all  the  part  possible  in  their 
study,  an  increasing  part  always  as  that  study  advances, 
but  students  also  in  their  own  occupation  of  the  theatre 
as  playhouse.     It  is  only  that  the  coinpletion  of  their 
study  there  takes  shape  in   the  performance  of  plays, 
since   (once  more   to  insist  on   it)  it  is  the  audience 
which  must  receptively  add  the  final  touch  to  the  work. 
This  may  seem  the  finest  of  distinctions,  and,  as  we 
may  allow,  to  the  casual  theatre-goer  not  an  important 
one.    But  the  difference  involved  in  the  admission  or 
non-admission  of  the  audience  as  an  artistic  partner  is 
enormous;    a  difi^erence   of  point  of  view,  of  aim,  of 
conduct  —  one  after  another  all  three  will  be  involved. 
To  start,  then,  from  the  human  foundation  of  the 
whole  matter.     What  sort  of  man  and  woman  do  we 
want  for  such  a  theatre  company,  and  by 
what  inducements  can  they  be  caught  and    The  sort 
kept?     There's  an  idea  still  about  —  it  is    °^  ^^^°^ 
not  so  much  a  fiction  as  a  simple  truth,     ,, .     , 
a    century    late    in    expiring,    kept    alive    needs 
perhaps  by  some  touch  of  romance  —  that 
an    actor's   life    is    an    agreeable   artistic    vagabond- 
age.    Young  people  condemned   to   a   career  of   dull 
routine  and  old  people  regretting  their  lost  opportuni- 
ties of  adventure  are  its  chief  fosterers.     And,  truly 
enough,  for  a  few  years  a  young  man  or  woman  will 
get  little  harm,  may,  indeed,  gain  a  great  deal  of  good, 
from  the  comradely  atmosphere  of  the  travelling  com- 
pany, and  the  chance  of  seeing,  if  they  keep  their  eyes 
open,  more  of  their  own  country,  more  of  the  world, 
and  an  aspect  of  both  that  ofiice  work  and  their  summer 


146         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

holidays  would  not  give  them.  But  a  lasting  career 
of  casual  labour  is  merely  demoralizing,  and  the  life 
of  the  touring  actor  just  about  as  romantic  as  a  com- 
mercial traveller's.  One  may  take  it  for  granted  that 
any  development  of  the  theatre  that  is  to  appeal  to 
actors  and  actresses  must  include  their  rescue  from 
financial  insecurity  and  vagabondage.  Who  can  de- 
fend indeed  that  other  part  of  the  present  theatrical 
system  which  obliges  seven  actors  out  of  ten  to  calcu- 
late —  if  they  dare  do  so  certain  a  thing  —  upon  an 
average,  at  best,  of  one  week's  idleness  in  three.'^  Is 
it  to  be  held  that  these  haphazards  of  existence  are 
what  give  the  mummer  that  air  of  careless  abandon- 
ment which  is  so  popular  with  young  ladies?  Even  if 
that  were  a  necessary  spice  to  our  enjoj^ment  of  the 
play  it  would  be  rather  hard  that  he  and  his  wife  and 
children  (young  ladies,  he  often  has  a  wife;  the  crea- 
ture even  has  children)  should  have  to  pay  the  price 
of  it.  Why  should  the  art  of  acting,  more  than  another, 
more  than  any  other  human  activity,  thrive  upon 
fecklessness? 

Success,  of  course  —  real  success,  such  as  may  come 
for  a  while  to  the  three  out  of  ten  —  will  carry  a  man 
out  of  this  category.  Not,  though,  that  a  lodgment 
in  it  denotes  failure;  that  is  the  altogether  damning 
and  damnable  thing.  If  it  did  one  could  honourably 
throw  up  the  game  altogether.  But  a  man  may  do 
more  than  moderately  well  as  far  as  his  acting  goes 
and  yet  be  ill-done  by  indeed  in  the  grip  of  this  system 
(so-called!),  which,  at  its  best,  offers  him  no  perma- 
nence even  of  unsatisfactory  employment.  He  is  at  the 
mercy  of  fashion,  of  the  even  more  demoralizing  spec- 
ulation in  fashion,  and  of  fifty  other  uncertainties  of 
liveliliood  —  all  avoidable.  It  is  bourgeois,  I  suppose, 
to  quarrel  with  such  a  condition  of  things.  But  it  is 
possible  that  the  theatre  may  be  quite  advantageously 
considered  as  a  rather  bourgeois  sort  of  art.     One  might 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  147 

add  the  query  whether  any  art  would   be  the  worse 
for  a  few  bourgeois  virtues? 

However  that  may  be,  the  exemplary  theatre  — 
this  theatre  as  school  —  would  certainly  need  to  attract 
a  company  of  cultured  men  and  women,  who  inci- 
dentally had  learned  to  be  good  actors  and  actresses. 
No  set  of  strange,  egotistical  creatures,  living  upon 
and  consumed  by  what  is  called  the  artistic  tempera- 
ment, and  caring  for  no  solider  sustenance,  expert 
though  they  might  be  in  curious  emotional  gymnastics, 
could,  upon  any  account,  find  their  place  in  it.  One 
must  allow  for  an  occasional  eccentric:  lovable,  fasci- 
nating, in  art  as  in  life.  Genius  will  arise,  domi- 
nating, compelling,  impatient  of  all  regulation,  apt,  at 
any  difference,  to  be  up  and  away.  But  one  may  use- 
fully question  whether,  in  a  calling  where  right  regula- 
tion counts  for  so  much,  even  genius  will  not  welcome 
the  freedom  to  work  more  intensely  that  the  good 
ordering  of  a  community  gives.  This  supposes  cer- 
tainly the  upbuilding  of  a  community  of  sympathy, 
not  a  binding  together  by  rule  and  regulation.  But 
why  is  this  impossible.'* 

The  rescue  from  vagabondage  is  even  more  called 
for  in  America  than  in  England.    The  successful  Eng- 
lish actor  establishes  himself  in  London, 
and  for  the  most  part  point-blank  refuses      J^^  rescue 
to  leave.     It  is  pleasanter,  better  for  his      vagabond- 
reputation,  and  pays  better.*    In  America      ^ge 
every     actor,     whatever    his    reputation, 
must  tour  —  and  does  tour,  for,  perhaps,  two  thirds 
of  his  career.    For  it  is  this  that  pays  better;  but  there 

*  Exceptions  to  this  rule  are  one  or  two  actor-managers  of  un- 
doubted reputation  whom  the  provinces  pay  and  London  does  not. 
But  I  don't  imagme  they  prefer  constant  touring.  They  choose 
to  hold  popularity  they  have  won  rather  than  tempt  fortune  in 
London.  And  any  English  actor  may  be  tempted  by  an  American 
engagement. 


148         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  likes  it.  One  must  not 
presume,  though,  that  he  equally  dislikes  playing  the 
same  part  night  after  night.  If  he  is  a  leading  actor 
the  presumption  is  that,  a  part  calling  for  three  or  four 
hundred  repetitions  is  a  good  part;  it  is  in  any  case 
hard  for  him  to  apply  any  other  measure  to  it  than 
that  of  its  success.  His  next  play  may  be  a  failure. 
Now,  the  penalty  of  failure  will  not  only  be  loss  of 
prestige  and  of  money,  but  the  worry  —  far  outweigh- 
ing, as  a  rule,  any  pleasure  in  the  work  —  of  deciding 
on  and  rehearsing  for  a  third.  He  cannot  be  expected 
to  despise  a  long  run.  And  if  the  pleasanter  life  of  a 
settled  career  in  one  theatre,  even  as  we  now  know  the 
theatre,  is  to  appeal  to  the  actor,  as  we  now  know  him, 
it  must  offer,  besides,  some  compensation  for  the  in- 
evitable dimming  of  his  personal  lustre  by  the  greater 
light  of  the  institution  itself.  And  it  must  also  balance 
in  his  favour  the  account  by  which,  as  against  his 
being  kept  from  exploiting  his  success  to  the  popular 
limit,  he  is  to  be  freed  from  the  equally  extreme  penal- 
ties of  failure.  Then  we  may  expect  him  to  consider 
with  a  more  open  mind  the  purely  artistic  pros  and 
cons.  The  money  question  itself  should  not  be  such  a 
crucial  one.  A  star  of  superb  brilliance  may,  of  course, 
fly  off  from  any  constellation  either  on  this  account  or 
on  that  of  personal  fame;  if  the  temptation  is  suflB- 
ciently  great  this  must  be  expected.  But  the  average 
successful  actor  does  not  make  so  much  more  money 
than  he  spends  in  the  making  of  it  that  at  a  time  when 
his  choice  had  to  be  taken  between  the  certainty  of  an 
honourable  competence  and  the  many  uncertainties  of 
freedom  he  would  not  be  very  likely  to  choose  the 
more  settled  career. 

We  might  then  without  great  difficulty  draw  the 
actor  Into  new  i)alhs  and  attract  to  tliem,  moreover,  a 
more  desirable  sort  of  professional  i)ilgrim  than  will 
be  contented  with  the  old.    For  though  the  life  of  the 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  149 

theatre  is  doubtless  one  of  vocation,  which  many  a  man 
will  follow  against  his  better  judgment,  still  the  inter- 
action between  the  desirable  life  and  the  quality  of  the 
talent  that  will  recruit  to  it  is  close  enough.  And  we 
shall  reap  an  artistic  reward  —  all  of  us  —  if  we  are 
right  in  believing  that  dramatic  art  prospers  by  the 
intimacy  of  its  relation  to  social  life,  and  so  will  be 
the  richer  by  such  a  variety  of  newcomers.  Something 
more,  however,  is  needed  than  rescue  from  vagabondage 
and  reorganization  of  work.  It  goes  without  saying 
that  the  present  system,  by  which  a  theatre  company 
is  kept  damnably  iterating  the  same  performance  eight 
or  more  times  a  week,  is  to  be  utterly  condemned.  But 
one  of  the  less  obvious  corollaries  of  the  system  is  just 
as  harmful  and  as  stupid  from  every  standpoint  ex- 
cept the  all-dominating  one  of  finance.  The  matured 
actor's  best  chance  of  developing  his  art 
and  observing  its  progress  lies  less  in  The  need 
the  performances  he  gives  than  in  his  °^  the  actor 
opportunities  for  study,  and  especially  for  j^q^^^^jj 
the  co-operative  study  (the  only  valid  perform 
kind,  as  we  have  seen  and  must  further  see)  less 
involved  in  the  rehearsing  of  a  play.  It  is 
true  that  he  may  develop  his  playing  of  a  part  before 
an  audience,  but  he  can  hardly  then  alter  its  main 
treatment;  apart  from  the  disturbance  to  his  fellow- 
actors  he  would  no  more  choose  to  do  so  than  does  a 
general  to  change  his  dispositions  under  fire.  The 
system,  then,  by  which  this  precious  time  of  prepara- 
tion must  be  meted  out  to  him  as  parsimoniously  as  if 
it  cost  (as  it  now  does)  the  eyes  out  of  his  manager's 
head,  and  the  whole  valuable  process  be  debased  into 
money-saving,  time-saving,  thought-saving  drill  is  as 
much  to  be  condemned  as  is  the  ceaseless  reiteration 
of  the  play  once  it  is  successfully  produced.  No  actor 
should  perform  a  part  of  any  length  or  importance 
more  than  four  times  a  week:  he  should  not  appear  at 


150        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

all,  on  an  average,  more  than  five  times;  rehearsals  and 
performances  should  divide  his  time  as  equally  as  possi- 
ble, and  as  much,  and  more,  consideration  should  be 
given  to  his  being  fit  to  rehearse  as  now  only  can  be 
(though  it  seldom  is)  to  his  not  being  too  over-worked 
to  play. 

These  are  obvious  considerations;  and  there  will 
always  be  theatres  unable  to  sound  this  part  of  the 
problem  of  their  relation  to  their  art  and  the  commu- 
nity any  deeper  than  to  abide  by  them:  repertory 
theatres,  well  organized,  with  their  time  fully  occupied 
in  giving  to  the  public  as  great  a  number  and  as  wide  a 
variety  of  performances  as  it  wull  absorb.  Nothing 
here  said  is  meant  to  depreciate  their  work.  They  are 
to  be  hoped  and  prayed  for.  They  are  possibly  the 
necessary  foundation  of  the  exemplary  theatre  that 
we  are  trying  to  outline;  for  only  in  them,  or  something 
akin  to  them,  will  the  actors  attain  that  solidarity  of 
purpose  and  that  sense  of  being  an  integral  part  of 
the  community,  if  but  of  that  particular  section  of 
the  community,  which  gives  them  its  constant  atten- 
tion; and  only  from  the  appreciation  of  such  a  theatre's 
work  will  come  the  lively  interest  in  drama  which  will 
fill  with  the  right  sort  of  student  the  theatre  as  school. 
The  repertory  theatre  is  the  only  sensible  theatre;  and 
it  is  at  least  a  genuine  theatre,  not  a  shop  for  producing 
plays.  But  it  may  have  the  fault  of  all  self-contained 
machinery  —  in  adaptability.  There  is  nothing  to  pre- 
vent and  much  to  encourage  such  a  theatre's  becom- 
ing academic  in  the  worst  sense  of  that  word.  Disci- 
pline, organization,  these  are  absolute  needs.  But  no 
art  rejoices  in  mere  bonds.  And  for  an  art  that  depends 
so  utterly  upon  its  human  factors  the  danger  that  in 
the  daily  round  of  routine  these  may  become  devital- 
ized and  ilicir  dcj)ressi()n  grow  into  the  "sleepy  spot" 
by  which  tlie  whole  fruit  will  l)e  mfectcd  is  one  that 
must  be  pursued  to  its  last  hiding-place. 


THE    THEATRE    AS    PLAYHOUSE  151 

Therefore  we  look  to  do  even  better  and  to  provide 
for  the  company  and  the  whole  staff  of  the  exemplary- 
theatre  not  only  such  an  assortment  of  work  and  leisure 
as  will  let  a  man  lead  the  ordinary  citizen  life,  but  such 
a  constant  connection  with  (one  hopes)  students  of 
diverse  dispositions,  working  with  varying  aims,  as 
will  keep  him  —  in  work  even  more  than  in  leisure  — 
well  in  the  current  of  the  public  ideas  and  emotions 
from  which,  and  only  from  which,  is  the  stuff  for  his 
interpretation  of  life  to  be  drawn. 

And  as  we  are  clear  of  the  idea  that  the  student's 
only  use  of  the  theatre  as  school  would  be  in  learning 
to  act,  let  us  also  get  rid  of  any  that  the 
actor  of  plays  must  necessarily  be  incapa-  The  actor  s 
ble  of  anything  else.  He  will  specialize  in  ^^-^^^  ^^^.j^ 
acting,  no  doubt.  One  would  not  actually  than  acting 
demand  of  him  a  talent  for  making  and 
painting  costumes  and  scenery;  though  by  all  means 
let  him  do  either  or  both  if  he  can.  And  the  writing  of 
plays  he  might  equally  not  take  to.  But  here  let  two 
things  be  remembered:  the  one,  that  there  is  a  play- 
making  as  well  as  a  playwriting  art.  We  have  of  late 
years  been  obsessed  by  the  literary  drama  to  the  point 
of  forgetting  that  acting  can  exist  independently  of 
the  dictatorship  of  words  on  paper;  and,  if  acting, 
plays.  Why  should  it  need  anything  but  the  habit  of 
close  co-operation  and  the  conditions  of  artistic  free- 
dom, which  we  look  for  in  these  theatres  of  the  future, 
to  encourage  our  actors  in  the  re-creating  upon  a  new 
basis  of  some  form  —  of  various  forms  —  of  this  self- 
contained  drama?  That  there  is  talent  for  it  the  work 
of  pantomime  and  revue  comedians  has  always  amply 
shown.  A  little  too  self-contained  their  work,  as  a 
rule,  perhaps;  too  individualist,  even  selfish!  But  one 
can  recall  instances  of  remarkable  co-operation.  And 
that  this  should  not  be  capable  of  extension,  that 
the  horizon   of   such  work  could  not  be  Quite   nota- 


152        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

bly  enlarged  is  a  matter  to  be  proved,  not  by  any 
means  taken  for  granted.  We  may  find  any  day  a 
quartet  of  comedians  improvising  fine  foolery;  they 
have  brought  their  faculties  to  a  high  pitch  to  do  it. 
Why  should  we  not  expect  a  company  of  actors,  as 
highly  trained  to  a  harder  task,  to  produce  improvi- 
sations of  beauty  and  of  sense. ^^  They  would  run  upon 
lines  of  extreme  simplicity,  no  doubt.  Literary  associ- 
ation is  the  beginning  of  complexity  for  the  theatre; 
and,  rightly  balanced  by  histrionics,  this  indeed  lifts 
the  whole  art  far  above  the  competition  of  any  minor 
combinations  of  its  elements.  But,  if  only  that  they 
may  the  better  take  their  part  in  the  whole,  these 
should  assert  themselves  all  they  can. 

The  second  thing  to  remember  is  that  the  art  of  act- 
ing could  draw  many  people  to  it  whom  now  it  keeps 
or  drives  away,  because  the  actor's  calling  demands 
such  exclusive  attention.  A  first-rate  actor,  it  is 
true,  may  not  wish  to  do  much  else  but  act  —  nothing 
but  a  little  contributory  teaching,  lecturing,  producing, 
enough  to  ease  the  single  strain,  to  lift  hmi  from  the 
rut.  How  far  one  can  be  a  first-rate  actor  upon  any 
other  terms  than  these  is  no  doubt  a  question.  It  may 
be  answered  in  terms  of  particular  individualities;  it 
may  become  a  part  of  the  general  question  of  double 
occupations.*  That  is  too  wide  a  one  to  trench  upon 
here.  But  we  may  premise  that,  if  this  be  a  problem 
calling  for  solution,  it  will  be  at  least  more  easily  solved 
when,  as  in  a  theatre,  the  occupations  could  be  cognate 
and  complementary  than  when  they  would  differ  so 

*  Mr.  Graham  Wallas  deals  most  enlightcningly  with  this 
problem  in  the  eliapter  on  Professionalism  in  "Our  Social  Heritage." 
He  takes  for  his  main  text  the  question  of  teaching  and  the  impossi- 
bility for  all  l)ut  a  few  devoted  natures  of  giving  a  lifetime  of  un- 
changed yet  fmilfnl  devoticjn  to  the  calling.  It  is  possible  that  the 
social  psychologist  may  come  to  think  that  exclusive  concentration 
u[)on  the  practice  of  any  art  exhibits  and  develops  a  morbid  dis- 
position in  a  man. 


THE    THEATRE   AS    PLAYHOUSE  153 

widely  as  to  bear  only  the  present  relations  between  a 
profession  and  a  hobby. 

But  there  is  no  good  reason  that  a  man  should  not  be 
a  first-rate  actor  and  give  equally  serious  attention  to 
other  work;  whether  kindred  or  contrasted  would  be  a 
matter  for  his  own  temperament  and  depend  upon  his 
capacity  for  boredom  and  the  sort  of  stimulus  he  needed. 
That  the  art  of  acting  would  profit  —  quite  apart  from 
the  question  of  personal  relief  or  private  advantage  to 
the  actor  —  by  the  chances  of  varying  employment 
there  can  be  no  doubt  at  all.  It  is  but  an  extension  of 
the  student's  profit  when  he  works,  not  cooped  among 
his  kind,  but  as  one  of  a  medley  of  minds  and  purposes. 

And  in  other  directions  we  must  revise  oiu  notions 
of  an  actor's  relation  to  his  work  and  of  our  own  re- 
lation to  it.     To  many  playgoers,  even  to 
hardened  ones,   the  enjoyment  of  a  play    The 
lies  in  the  illusion  created.     To  this  the    ^f^jj^gfj°° 
realistic  methods  of  production  that  have    ^^  ^  ^^     ^^ 
now    found    half    a    century's     favour  —    appreciation 
a    favour    still    enduring,    though    under- 
mined — -  largely  contribute.     They  find  a  parallel  in 
the  facilely  emotional  fiction  for  which  the  great  spread 
of  the  habit  of  reading  has  provided  a  market.     But 
this  surrender  to  illusion,  however  allowable,  is  only 
the  crudest  form  of  enjoyment  the  theatre  provides. 
And  it  is  the  cruder  sort  of  acting  that  contributes  to 
it;  the  impersonative,  not  the  interpretative.     When 
W.  T.  Stead,  at  the  age  of  sixty  something,  went  into 
a  theatre  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  as  dramatic  critic 
to  the  Review  of  Reviews  one  of  his  first  remarks  was 
that,  if  plays  were  to  mean  anything  to  him,  no  actor, 
having  appeared  before  him  in  one  part,  must  ever 
appear  before  him  in  another,  or  the  illusion  would  be 
gone.      This    was    charmingly    childish    and    most   m- 
structive  as  a  reduction  to  absurdity  of  that  particular 
demand  upon  the  drama.    But  it  is  hardly  more  sensible 


154        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

to  ask  the  actor  (after  this  one  fine  and  free  outburst) 
to  limit  his  art  to  impersonative  attempts  to  deceive 
Mr.  Stead  and  his  fellow  children.  They  must  really 
seek  some  other  standard  of  enjoyment.  This  is  easy 
enough  to  find,  though  for  its  full  attainment  a  little 
serious  attention  to  the  technique  of  the  art  is  cer- 
tainly needed.  Over  any  familiar  play,  indeed,  we 
admit  this  standard  already;  and  far  more  readily 
over  any  opera,  familiar  or  strange  to  us.  Illusion  in 
this  last  case  can  hardly  be  said  to  exist;  we  are  thrown 
entirely  upon  interpretation  for  our  enjoyment.  Now 
it  is  not  only  because  of  the  fuller  meal  of  sensation  it 
provides,  its  appeal  to  the  eye  and  its  multiplied  appeal 
to  the  ear,  that  we  go  to  an  opera  a  dozen  times  and  to 
a  play  but  once.  We  have  from  the  first  applied  a 
more  fruitful  method  of  enjoyment  to  it.  And  we 
take  to  a  performance  of  "Hamlet"  no  hunger  for 
illusion.  Many  of  us,  no  doubt,  have  sighed  after  that 
fatally  lost  chance  of  being  one  among  the  very  first 
audience  that  saw  it.  Not  to  have  known  what  was 
coming!*  But  we  now  go  to  see  the  interpretation  of 
a  play  which  is  so  familiar  to  us  that  many  of  us  could 

play  prompter  if  need  were;  and  however 
Our  much  its  poor  interpretation  may  fail  to 

interest  in  gtir  us  it  is  not  for  lack  of  illusion,  or  be- 
^?     Pf^  cause  of  its  familiarity,  that  we  come  away 

only  one  disappointed.      We    are    not    necessarily 

worth  bored  by  the  fiftieth  hearing  of  a  Beethoven 

cultivating       Sonata.    Indeed,  the  closer  our  familiarity 

the  greater  can  be  om*  enjoyment  if  our 

*  There  is,  of  course,  another  side  to  this,  exemplificfl  in  the 
story  of  the  nuin  in  the  pit  who  turned  to  liis  neighbour  at  the  end 
of  the  first  act  of  Irving's  performance  of  "Hamlet,"  just  as  the 
great  actor  had  witlidrawn  from  l)efore  the  ciirtain  amid  applause. 
"I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  he  asked,  "hut  have  you  ever  seen  this 
play  before?"  "Oh,  yes,"  was  the  answer.  "And  will  that  young 
man  in  black  appear  often?"  —  "Fairly  often."  —  "Ob,"  said  the 
questioner,  "  then  I'm  off,"  and  left  the  theatre. 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  155 

knowledge  of  Shakespeare's  work  is  balanced  by  some 
appreciation  of  the  technique  of  acting.  For  then  we 
ask  more  of  the  actor;  and,  generally  speaking,  the 
more  one  appreciatively  asks  (in  this  instance  we  ask 
in  the  negative  sense  of  refusing  to  do  without)  the 
more  one  gets.  The  simplest  way  to  some  understand- 
ing of  the  actor's  art  is  through  knowledge  of  the  plays 
he  performs.  Hence,  the  far  more  intelligent  interest 
taken  in  acting  in  the  days  when  the  "classic"  repertory 
was  the  basis  of  every  actor's  reputation.  But  one 
may  also  acquire  a  technical  knowledge  which  will 
let  us  appreciate  the  interpretation  of  plays  which  are 
neither  familiar  nor  dependent  upon  virtuosity  of 
treatment  —  such  a  simple  virtuosity  as  will  raise  the 
enthusiasm  of  a  French  audience  for  any  finely  given 
screed  of  verse.  This  interpretative  method  of  acting 
that  we  desiderate  will  certainly  differ  so  much  in  de- 
gree as  almost  to  seem  different  in  kind  from  the  crude 
impersonative  realism  which  belongs,  properly  enough 
no  doubt,  to  crudely  realistic  plays:  and  of  its  elabora- 
tion more  later.  The  point  now  to  make  is  only  that 
any  identification  of  the  player  with  the  part  implies  a 
lowering,  not  a  heightening,  of  artistic  achievement. 
It  is  undesirably  limiting  for  the  actor  to  be  tied  too 
strictly  to  acting;  for  he  will  lose  thereby  catholicity 
of  interest  in  the  theatre.  And  upon  no  account  should 
he  be  allowed  to  attach  to  himself  in  any  theatre  par- 
ticular parts.  True  appreciation  of  his  work  in  them 
will  only  come  by  comparison  with  the  work  of  other 
actors.  The  idea  that  even  a  new  part  should  "belong" 
to  the  actor  who  "creates"  it  is  based  upon  the  childish 
view  of  the  theatre.  This  has  been  reinforced  by  false 
methods  of  production,  evolved  for  inferior  plays,  lead- 
ing to  paradoxical  attempts  to  combine  the  weakness 
of  a  part  and  the  weakness  of  an  actor  so  as  to  produce 
an  appearance  of  artistic  strength.  It  is  only  an  appear- 
ance; and,  even  so,  a  deceptive  one.    For  the  identify- 


156         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

ing  of  the  actor  with  the  part  dissolves  rapidly — with 
an  audience  in  whom  sophistication  takes  the  place 
of  education  —  into  a  loss  of  the  part  in  the  personality 
of  the  actor.  And  so  the  ill-gained  illusion  vanishes. 
But  good  plays  not  only  endure,  they  profit  by  variety 
of  treatment.  And  a  good  actor  neither  wishes  the 
fact  that  he  has  been  acting  to  be  ignored,  nor  looks 
to  suffer  by  comparison  with  successors  —  unless  they 
are  to  be  imitators  also,  when  they  may  expose  his 
insufficiencies  by  thus  revealing  their  own.  And  once 
we  join  our  faith  to  the  interpretative  as  against  the 
impersonative  method  it  becomes  obvious  that,  as 
there  is  no  final  and  correct  way  of  playing  a  part,  so 
there  are  no  degrees  of  artistic  dignity  involved  in  a 
second  and  third  actor  following  the  first.  Therefore, 
once  this  is  recognized,  a  reasonable  amount  of  change 
in  the  casts  of  the  plays  given  in  any  theatre  will  be 
a  stimulus  to  their  attendance  and  a  simple  means  to 
the  understanding  of  the  actor's  art.  Of  course,  players 
will  always  find  their  favourite  parts  and  audiences 
their  favourite  players  in  them.  Some  indulgence  in 
such  fancies  will  do  no  harm;  for  of  all  places  in  the 
world  a  theatre  is  the  one  where  allowance  for  the 
human  factor  should  be  made.  It  is  the  establishment 
of  the  principle  that  matters. 

When  we  speak,  then,  of  the  theatre  as  playhouse 
we  are  to  imagine  it,  not  as  a  body  separate  from  the 

theatre  as  school,  but  rather  as  the  head  of 
The  that  body;  and  of  the  theatre  company  not 

relation  of  ^g  being  so  mucli  an  assortment  of  well- 
t  tif^*°^^  trained  actors,  producers,  designers  as  a 
mor.orr^  homogcncous  bodv  of  men  and  women  of 

ment  of  the  the  theatre,  ])erfected  as  much  in  the  broad 
theatre  understanding  as  in  the  narrower  accom- 

plisliment  of  tlieir  work.  Specialization 
there  must  always  be;  people  will  do  predominantly 
what  they  do  best;  it  is  a  question  of  degree,  but  the 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  157 

degree  is  all-important.  Had  there  been  in  the  English- 
speaking  theatre  an  uninterrupted  development  from 
the  stock  to  the  true  repertory  system  we  should,  still, 
in  accordance  with  the  exigencies  of  modern  plays, 
have  long  left  behind  the  old  divisions  of  the  acting 
company  into  leading  men  and  women,  juveniles,  light 
comedians,  first  old  men,  heavies,  singing  chamber- 
maids, and  all  the  rest  of  the  menagerie.  How  much 
further  upon  this  path  of  freedom  the  enlarged  con- 
ception of  the  theatre  as  school  would  carry  us  is  a 
question  that  can  only  be  satisfactorily  answered  by 
experience. 

But  from  that  question  springs  another.  What  share 
in  the  administration  should  be  given  to  the  company? 
The  pros  and  cons  of  this  problem  are  being  argued  and 
fought  in  half  the  industries  of  the  world  at  the  moment. 
The  theatre  of  our  planning  may  look  to  profit  by  any 
general  solution  effected.  It  has  few  particular  re- 
quirements to  be  satisfied;  but  such  as  these  are  it  is 
worth  while  to  note  them.  It  would  no  doubt  be 
practicable  for  the  theatre  as  a  whole  to  be  actually 
managed  by  a  committee  of  the  company  themselves; 
practicable,  but  not,  perhaps,  very  advisable.  They 
would  have  to  delegate  most  administrative  powers; 
policy  would  be  their  only  effective  province.  And 
whether  the  devising  of  policy  from  such  an  interior 
point  of  view  is  an  advantage  to  an  institution  whose 
very  life  lies  in  its  reflection  of  the  more  actual  life 
without  its  walls  is  to  be  doubted.  The  company's 
united  influence  could  probably  be  most  fruitfully  ex- 
ercised through  advisory  committees,  which  could 
appoint  small  sub-committees  to  deal  with  some  of 
the  administrative  work  of  the  theatre's  internal  organ- 
ization. And  they  should  certainly  have  a  full  say  in 
matters   that  personally   concerned   them.*     Another 

*  The  classical  instance  of  a  committee  having  real  power  in  a 
theatre  is  that  of  the  one  for  the  selection  of  plays  at  the  Theatre 


158         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

step  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of  tlie  permanence 

of  the  company's  connection  with  the  theatre.    Here 

again  we  have  to  consider   both   absohite 

,  conditions  (as  far  as  such  things  can  ever 

livelihood        exist)  and  the  tendencies  of  contemporary 

development,    very    patent    to    us.      The 

theatre's  every  effort  at  the  moment  is  to  estabhsh 

fixed  conditions  of  employment.    Now  a  certain  fixity 

Frangais.  I  do  not  pretend  to  know  liow,  in  practice,  this  works; 
but  I  seem  to  remember  that  of  the  many  inevitable  and,  no  doubt, 
salutary  attacks  upon  an  academic  institution  a  large  proportion 
of  those  levelled  at  the  Franc^ais  have  been  based  on  its  alleged 
myopic  attitude  towards  the  new  playwright  or  the  unaccustomed 
play.  Now,  for  one  thing,  committees  that  are  large  enough  to 
develop  parties  tend  always  to  a  policy  of  compromise;  that  is  one 
good  reason  for  condemning  them  for  such  a  purpose  as  this.  And 
even  if  the  plays  chosen  by  a  committee  in  which  actors  predom- 
inated —  even  such  sublimated  actors  as  we  are  forecasting  — 
were  not  always  likely  to  be  more  remarkable  for  the  superficial 
effectiveness  of  their  actmg  qualities  than  the  dramatic  soundness 
of  their  content,  there  would  always  be  the  danger  of  a  subtle  and 
very  fatal  form  of  compromise  in  the  disposition  to  give  each  lead- 
ing actor  (and  one  presumes  a  committee  of  leading  actors  only) 
his  turn  at  a  good  part.  "It's  a  long  time  smce  so-and-so  had  his 
chance:  this  will  give  it  him."  These  words  might  not  be  spoken, 
but  the  understanding  will  be  there.  Notliing  is  harder  to  break 
than  a  ring  of  mutual  interests,  and  the  people  composing  it  are 
the  most  powerless.  It  is  cemented  by  such  admirable  qualities, 
but  the  cement  does  harden.  Loyalty  to  comrades  —  what  can  be 
finer.''  But  one  should  give  it  no  chance  of  undermining  the  higher 
abstract  loyalty,  harder  to  achieve  —  to  the  theatre  itself.  And 
even  if  in  this  supposition  one  is  unjust  it  is  never  well  to  place 
upon  actors  themselves  the  burden  of  choosing  plays.  For  they  it  is 
who  must  face  the  audience.  AVlien  a  play  fails  tliey  are,  as  a  rule, 
the  last  to  be  blamed.  To  be  frank,  one  has  known  actors  respon- 
sible for  a  failure,  who  yet,  by  merely  giving  that  last  evidence  of 
their  inadequacy  for  their  task,  the  appearance  of  good  men  strug- 
gling with  adversity,  have  roused  the  more  sympathy  for  themselves; 
and  to  the  minds  of  the  audience,  who  knew  no  more  than  the  pre- 
sentment before  them,  have  transferred  their  own  shortcomings  to 
the  play.  Well,  it  is  better  this  should  be  so,  for  playwrights  —  even 
managemcDtii  —  may  look  to  the  further  future  for  compensation. 


THE  THEATRE  AS  PLAYHOUSE       159 

is  dictated  by  the  work  of  such  a  theatre  as  this.  Apart 
from  the  welcome  that  might  be  offered  to  an  occasional 
distinguished  guest  to  lecture  in  the  school,  or  —  a 
much  less  likely  event  —  to  appear  in  the  playhouse,* 
and  apart  from  the  probationary  engagements  of  young 
people  graduating  from  the  school  —  and  even  these 
could  not  conveniently  be  for  less  than  a  year  —  every 
member  of  the  company  should  be  at  least  encouraged 
to  acquire  a  permanent  interest  in  it.  How  closely  that 
interest  would  need  to  be  sustained  is  another  matter. 
For  several  years,  certainly,  without  intermission. 
After  that  an  insistence  upon  a  sabbatical  year  might 
be  very  advisable,  and  an  even  looser  system  of  fur- 
loughs might  have  to  be  devised  to  meet  the  case  of 
individualities  whose  work  did  not  improve,  whose 
spirits  were  dulled  by  too  strict  home-keeping.  The 
theatre  would  run  the  risk  of  losing  them,  valuable 
talents  perhaps.  It  would  be  better  to  take  that  chance. 
The  theatre  might  be  the  better  for  their  loss,  what- 
ever the  value  of  these  talents,  if  they  could  not  accom- 
modate themselves  at  least  to  self-discipline.  More- 
while  the  actor  cannot.  To-morrow  he  must  face  his  audience 
again.  Better  relieve  him,  then,  of  these  responsibilities.  Let  the 
failures  be  accounted  the  management's  bad  choice,  and  let  the 
actor  take  all  the  more  credit  for  successes. 

*  Much  less  likely,  because,  however  distinguished  the  actor 
and  warm  the  welcome,  he  could  not  hope  to  feel  or  be  made  at 
home  in  his  surroundings.  For  the  company  would  have  been 
cultivating  something  more  important  tlian  their  own  talents,  and, 
strangely  enough,  something  more  individual,  but  less  dispensable, 
than  an  amalgam  of  their  personal  talents:  the  genius  of  the  theatre 
itself,  which  will  both  exceed  and  transcend  the  sum  of  all  the 
personal  efforts  employed.  Pitting  himself  against  this  —  and  he 
would  be  compelled  to  —  the  most  refulgent  star  would  shine  less 
brilliantly  than  was  his  wont.  There  will  be  found  in  the  "Scheme 
and  Estimates  for  a  National  Theatre"  a  very  ample  discussion  of 
this  point.  My  mind  abides  by  the  plans  there  detailed;  though 
I  should  trust  less  to  financial  than  to  artistic  interests  to  keep  the 
actors  tied. 


160        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

over,  the  best  way  to  hold  such  temperaments,  and  to 
hold  the  best  in  them,  is  by  the  bar  of  an  ever-open 
door. 

We  may  note,  besides,  that  the  wider  scope  of  the 
work  of  the  theatre  as  school  would  bring  a  practical 
freedom  in  this  direction  that  not  many  mere  repertory 
theatres  could  attain.  Companies  nowadays  that  are 
organized  for  the  production  of  particular  plays  pass 
from  the  intensive  worry  of  rehearsals  to  the  more  or 
less  extensive  boredom  of  the  run.  The  great  improve- 
ment, by  which  a  theatre  could  not  only  produce,  but 
keep  its  plays  unexhausted  and  alive,  would  give  it  a 
more  reasonably,  but  at  the  same  time  a  very  fully 
occupied  company.  The  management  of  such  a  theatre 
would  concern  itself  closely  to  avoid  the  waste  of  its 
human  material,  and  —  with  one  peg  to  each  hole, 
but  no  more,  being  the  economical  rule  —  dislocation 
of  its  nice  arrangements  would  be  a  serious  matter. 
But,  in  a  theatre  of  the  still  wider  scope  we  envisage, 
if  the  work  of  the  school  and  the  amount  of  pure  study 
bore  a  proper  proportion  to  the  whole  it  would  abso- 
lutely force  upon  the  institution  not  only  an  increase 
of  staff,  but  an  elasticity  of  the  playhouse  organization 
that  would  both  permit  and  encourage  the  wider  dis- 
tribution of  activity  we  are  seeking. 

What  the  earnings  of  the  company  should  be  we  need 
not  discuss  in  any  detail.  Ordinary  wisdom  makes 
one  or  two  things  clear.  There  will  in  time,  one  hopes, 
be  many  exemplary  theatres,  but  for  all  that  the  ex- 
ample is  admired  and  followed  it  will  be  followed  with 
many  a  difference.  No  academy  but  becomes  both  a 
city  to  leave  and  a  stronghold  to  storm.  We  aim  at 
the  virtues  of  an  academy;  we  shall  never  escape  being, 
at  the  least,  accused  of  its  vices.  Besides,  the  more 
thoroughly  the  exemplary  theatre  fulfils  its  purpose 
the  greater  number  and  variety  of  dramatic  outcrops 
there  will  be,  each  with  its  appropriate  market  for  its 


THE  THEATRE  AS  PLAYHOUSE       161 

particular  wares.  And  the  exemplary  theatres  them- 
selves must,  for  certain  purposes,  keep  in  the  main 
market,  if  not  of  it.  Nothing  is  less  to  be  desired  than 
the  creation  of  institutions  of  a  cold  and  cloistered 
superiority.  Therefore  the  economic  conditions  under 
which  the  company  would  work  should  be  better  than 
(by  which  one  does  not  mean  only  that  the  pay  should 
be  larger),  but  not  essentially  different  from  those  its 
individual  members  could  find  elsewhere.  For  instance, 
while  an  actor,  devoting  himself  to  such  a  theatre  as 
this,  should  be  assured  of  the  decent  competence  which 
is  his  appropriate  compensation  for  preferring  to  in- 
vest his  abilities  rather  than  gamble  with  them,  there 
is  no  reason  he  should  not  be  allowed  to  register  inci- 
dental success  in  money  value  either  within  the  theatre 
or  without.  His  furloughs  should  serve  this  purpose 
among  others,  and  he  should  be  free  to  depart  alto- 
gether without  great  sacrifice  if  he  has  served  the 
theatre  for,  say,  seven  years  or  so,  built  up  a  claim  to 
a  pension  or  what  not,*  and  if  he  then  discovers,  or 
it  is  discovered  for  him,  that  he  does  no  more  particular 
good  by  remaining.  The  branches  must  at  any  cost 
be  kept  living;  dead  wood  is  even  the  WT)rse  in  that  it 
does  not  kill  the  tree.  And  what  does  this  theatre 
finally  exist  for,  but  the  profit  of  dramatic  art  gener- 
ally.'^ Even  the  loss,  then,  of  a  member  of  its  company, 
fully  seized  with  its  methods  and  ideals,  would  be  pre- 
sumably the  general  gain.  A  gospel  is  often  spread  by 
apostates. 

One  thing  only  —  and  that  on  principle  —  should 
perhaps  be  altogether  avoided:  profit-sharing,  with  its 
further  implication  of  some  sort  of  joint  control.  It  is 
no  stimulus  to  quality  of  production,  the  only  thing 
for  which  we  are  concerned  to  provide.  There  can, 
indeed,  be  no  direct  financial  profit  for  anyone  con- 

*  "The  Scheme  and  Estimates  for  a  National  Theatre"  deals 
with  this  question,  too,  in  some  detail,  and,  I  think,  quite  sensibly. 


162  THE    EXEMPLARY    THEATRE 

cerned  in  the  exemplary  theatre,  and  those  who  cannot 

work  without  the  prospect  of  it  had  better  go  elsewhere. 

In  these  days  there  is  bound  to  be  a  committee 

somewhere.     Let  us  then  be  certain  of  one  thing:  the 

foredoomed  failure  of  the  exemplary  the- 
The  fallacy  atre,  or  of  any  institution  of  the  kind,  if 
o  a  minis-  ^  committee  with  administrative  powers 
tration  by         .  .        .        ,       „     . ,         *  i     •    •  f    .  • 

committee       ^^    ^^    ^"®    head    oi     it.      Admmistration 

by  a  committee  spells  compromise,  and 
not  even  that  in  its  admitted  entirety,  but  rather 
as  a  divided  purpose  which  is  the  rightful  dam- 
nation of  all  art.  There  would,  no  doubt,  be  much 
that  committees  might  do  in  such  a  theatre,  given 
consultative,  legislative  functions  merely.  They  could 
usefully  co-ordinate  the  various  branches  of  the 
theatre's  work.  And  a  supreme  body  of  this  sort,  a 
council,  a  board  of  trustees,  would  be  the  pattern  link 
between  the  theatre  itself  and  the  community  it  serves, 
and  as  such  valuable  beyond  question.  Much  of  the 
theatre's  mechanism  must  be  devised,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  keep  this  bond  alive,  automatically,  unconsciously. 
And  the  key  function  of  this  supreme  committee  would 
be  to  do  this  actively  and  deliberately,  and  to  see  that 
all  the  time  it  was  being  done. 

Conceive  the  theatre  as  part  of  a  university  and  its 
governing  body  could  be  provided  for  more  or  less 
according  to  custom.  This  would  be  well  enough  as 
far  as  the  theatre  as  school  was  concerned.  But  the 
functions  of  the  theatre  as  playhouse  make  a  case  for 
the  setting  up  of  wider  connections.  We  must  cease 
to  think  of  an  audience  as  any  haphazard  collection  of 
people  that  has  paid  for  admission  to  a  show.  Truly 
under  present  conditions  in  big  cities  it  is  no  more. 
We  find  one  successful  play  stuck  in  a  theatre  for  a 
year  at  a  time,  one  section  after  another  of  the  public 
is  appealed  to  and  exhausted,  and  the  play  is  kept 
going  for  months  m^ybe  merely  by  the  favour  of  the 


THE    THEATRE    AS    PLAYHOUSE  163 

shifting  hotel  population.  This  last  has  increased 
greatly  of  late  years,  and  has  been  particularly  catered 
for  (certain  plays,  one  would  say,  find  their  chief 
support  in  it  from  the  beginning),  so  that  even  the 
loosely  established  "connections"  upon  which  theatres 
of  better  reputation  used  a  little  to  rely  have  been 
dissipated.  Any  theatre,  however,  by  a  simple  per- 
sistence in  policy,  may  acquire  a  reputation  which  will 
encourage  constant  attendance,  may  secure  an  audi- 
ence whose  taste,  while  it  may  not  amount  to  much, 
will  but  need  in  some  simple  fashion  to  find  a  voice  for 
it  to  be  valid  and  valuable  and  a  definitely  consultable 
part  of  the  theatre's  constitution.  A  theatre  manager 
talks  now  of  the  public  taste.  He  deceives  himself, 
for  as  far  as  the  drama  is  concerned  there  is  no  such 
thing.  He  addresses  himself  to  nothing  so  constant 
and  integral  as  a  public.  He  caters  for  the  casual 
appetites  of  a  mob.  And  more  money  is  lost,  more 
time  and  energy  wasted,  in  efforts  to  calculate  the  in- 
calculable than  would  suffice  to  endow  a  dozen  theatres 
with  at  least  the  virtue  of  self-respect.  Once  a  public 
is  found  and  formed,  though,  it  may  develop  a  taste 
well  worth  respecting.  The  problem,  then,  will  only 
be  how  to  render  it  articulate;  and,  as  far  as  our  exem- 
plary theatre's  integrated  public  is  concerned,  how  best 
(for  one  thing)  to  represent  it  upon  the  governing  body. 
A  big  university  might  —  and  why  not?  —  run  a 
theatre  entirely  for  the  benefit  of  its  students:  for  those 
that  would  easily  fill  it  as  audience  no 
less  than  for  those  going  nwire  intimately  An 
to  sdiool  there.  In  America,  under  such  a  integrated 
scheme,  undergraduate  bodies  woidd  al-  ^^^  j^^ 
most  certainly  be  given  a  voice  in  its  represen- 
policy.  In  England,  if  such  theatres  were  tation 
the  fruit  of  undergraduate  enthusiasm, 
they  would  be  good  ground  for  some  experiment  in  this 
direction.     The    working-men's  theatres,   so  common 


164  THE    EXEI^IPLARY    THEATRE 

in  the  German-speaking  countries,  soive  this  problem, 
of  course,  without  any  difficultjs  for  they  start,  so  to 
speak,  with  an  organized  audience.  The  bodies,  by 
the  bye,  most  likely  to  emulate  them  in  England  are 
not  the  trade  unions  but  the  co-operative  societies, 
which  have  ample  experience  of  the  financing,  at  least, 
of  enterprises  not  so  dissimilar  in  intention.  They 
might  do  worse  than  consider  the  question. 

Still,  sectional  audiences,  whether  of  manual  workers 
or  shopkeepers,  or  doctors  and  lawj^ers,  or  stockbrokers 
and  bankers,  are  not  in  themselves  very  desirable.  A 
university  audience  would  only  be  better  because  it 
would  at  least  represent  a  section  cross-cut  through 
the  whole  community.  And  there  are  objections  to 
be  urged  against  any  process  which  will  produce  in  a 
theatre  the  atmosphere  of  the  coterie.  It  would  be  a 
pity  if  a  choice  could  only  lie  between  the  intensity  of  a 
coterie  and  the  anarchy  of  the  mob.  Those  theatres  are 
the  most  fortunate  in  their  audience  that  have  a  natu- 
rally mixed  community  of  negotiable  size  to  draw  upon. 
But  how  large  a  town  must  be  to  provide  a  steady 
five  or  six  thousand  theatre-goers  a  week  is  too  crude 
a  speculation.  We  must  think  qualitatively  in  the 
matter;  we  want  a  census  of  its  leisured  class;  by  lei- 
sured not  meaning  idle.  Taste  in  drama  will  be  found 
to  have  a  very  direct  relation  with  industrial  fatigue; 
the  worst  audiences  being  those  with  minds  dulled  by 
ot!cupational  routine  or  debilitated  by  the  lack  of  any. 
^  When  an  audience  can  be  adequately  spoken  for  by 
those  that  represent  the  community  in  other  public 
matters  the  problem  is  at  its  simplest.  There  is  no 
reason  that  every  sizable  town  should  not  possess  its 
theatre  and  control  its  theatre  ns  it  does  any  other  of 
its  pu})lic  services.  If  the  elected  representative  has 
not  superfine  taste  in  these  matters  it  is  probably 
a.s  good  as  that  of  the  majority  of  the  electors;  if  it 
isn't  let  them  look  to  it,  for  perhaps  he  is  betraying 


THE  THEATRE  AS  PLAYHOUSE       165 

them  in  other  imponderable  matters  as  well.  But 
with  as  great  a  reliance  on  expertize  as  they  must  have 
for  their  education  system,  for  their  local  hospital  (as 
dose  and  as  loose  a  bond  as  commonly  binds  this  to 
elected  authorities  would  be  no  bad  measure  of  the 
relations  of  a  theatre)  we  can  easily  see  how  the  study 
and  interpretation  of  drama  might  be  brought  under 
civic  protection.  And  in  the  larger,  less  comprehen- 
sible communities,  where  sectionalism  of  some  sort,  of 
taste,  class,  or  income,  has  more  excuse  to  assert  itself, 
it  will  be  well  to  counteract  its  worse  effects  by  assort- 
ing the  governing  body  very  variously  indeed.  This 
council  (let  us  tentatively  so  call  it)  should  certainly 
represent  the  audience  of  the  playhouse,  in  whose  inter- 
est also  that  of  the  students,  past  and  present,  of  the 
school  would  be  bound  up.  But  it  should  stand,  further- 
more, for  the  theatre's  dignity,  and  for  the  fullness  of 
its  public  purpose. 

Upon  such  principles,  though  with  many  variations 
in  practice,  councils  of  national,  municipal,  or  univer- 
sity theatres  might  be  formed.     And  it  is 
worth  while,  in  passing,  to  remember  how    The 
extraordinarily  wide  is  the  play  of  the  in-    political 
fluence  of    any  theatre  that  has  the  sta-     .,     theatre 
tus  of  a  public  institution.      The  Theatre    ^s  a  public 
Frangais  is  not  only  the  possession  of  the    institution 
Parisian,  and  a  shrine  that  every  provin- 
cial Frenchman  with  a  sense  of  his  national  culture 
must  make  pilgrimage  to;  but  is  it  too  much  to  say 
that  it  stands  for  every  visitor  to  Paris,  that  most 
visited  of  cities,  as  something^  far  more  vividly  inter- 
pretative of  France  than  the  galleries,  museums,  shops, 
and  hotels  which  are  probably  his  only  other  haunts? 
What   deeper   insight   into   the   cultural   tradition   of 
France  can  the  casual  stranger  hope  for  than  he  will 
find  in  this  expressive  place.'*    The  Londoner  takes  his 
cathedral,  his  museum,  and  national  picture  galleries 


166        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

as  a  matter  of  course.  Destroy  any  of  them;  cover 
Ludgate  Hill  with  shops,  or  Trafalgar  Square  with  an 
hotel,  and  —  for  all  that  he  may  be  but  a  passer-by  of 
these  shrines,  not  twice  in  his  lifetime  a  visitor  —  he 
would  as  a  good  citizen  feel  impoverished  and  insulted. 
Has  he  not  imagination  enough  to  note  the  gap  in  his 
city's  crown,  where  the  national  theatre  should  be? 
Does  it  never  occur  to  statesmen,  in  the  intervals  of 
their  talk  of  the  bonds  of  empire,  that  in  a  national 
theatre  they  could  have  a  perpetual  public  meeting,  so 
to  speak,  where  the  knot  of  a  racial  fellowship  in  appre- 
hension and  understanding  might  be  tied  with  a  better, 
because  a  less  obtrusive,  eloquence.'^*  National  theatres 
will  come,  no  doubt,  in  England  and  the  Dominions, 
too,  and  the  political  importance  of  such  a  one  in 
London  might  well  outshine  the  educational  aspect 
which  we  have  been  at  pains  to  emphasize.  No  reason 
the  outshining  should  harm  it. 

The  problem  of  the  right  adjustment  of  an  insti- 
tution to  a  communit}^'s  demands  upon  it  is  first  of  all 
the  problem  of  how  its  governance  should 
A  council  be  constituted,  of  how,  in  the  case  of  our 
at  the  head  theatre,  then,  its  cou'^cil  should  be  made 
its  constitu-  ^'P"  ^^^^  ^^^^  principles  involved  need  con- 
tion;  its  ^ern  us,   for  this  part  of  the  institution 

work  more  than  any  other  is  likely  to  depend 

upon  the  circumstances  of  its  creation. 
There  will  be,  however,  certain  dangers  to  guard 
against.    In  too  many  such  councils  is  felt  the  weight, 

*  Moreover,  we  are  out  to  fasliion  bonds  for  the  English-speak- 
ing races  that  shall  sii})ject  them  to  no  poHtical  chafings.  Why  do 
all  good  Americans,  when  they  die,  go  to  Paris,  and  possibly  even 
greater  multitudes  in  tins  life?  One  answer,  at  least,  is  that  there 
is  very  little  to  bring  them  to  London  instead.  As  a  result  of  its 
serious  study  in  their  schools  and  colleges  more  and  more  Americans 
of  the  younger  generation  are  interested  in  the  drama.  But  they 
travel  to  France  :uid  to  Germany  to  refresh  their  ideas  about  it  — 
never  to  England  now. 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  167 

if  not  of  the  dead,  of  the  dying,  hand.  For  a  museum 
or  a  gallery,  where  products  of  the  past  are  to  be  tidily 
tucked  away,  this  may  not  so  much  matter.  But  in 
the  control  of  a  theatre,  which  must  renew  its  life  day 
by  day,  to  give  even  the  power  of  responsible  criticism 
too  predominantly  to  minds  that  must  more  naturally 
judge  the  present  by  self-defensive  memories  than  see 
it  as  preparation  for  a  future  which  they  themselves 
will  not  see  might  have  a  very  deadening  effect.  Why 
should  we  not  find  in  our  council  —  along  with  govern- 
ment or  municipal  representatives  and  nominees  of  the 
vested  interests  of  the  older  generation  —  the  younger 
people  voicing  there  their  insurgency  and  discontent.'^ 
To  begin  with,  insurgency  within  such  a  body  would  be  of 
far  more  use  to  the  theatre  than  attacks  from  without 
and  the  calling  for  revolution  and  secession  would  be; 
not  to  mention  that  it  would  make  for  a  healthier  and  a 
livelier  time  than  usually  falls  to  the  lot  of  these  august 
assemblies.  The  theatre  would  profit  by  being  sub- 
jected at  such  close  quarters  to  the  impertinence  of 
youth,  by  having  to  match  its  settled  habits  with  the 
irresponsibilities  of  those  whose  interests  were  vested 
mainly  in  their  hopes  for  the  future.  Students'  asso- 
ciations, bodies  of  teachers,  church  coimcils,  chambers 
of  commerce,  manufacturers'  associations,  local  trade 
unions  —  any  or  all  of  them  might  be  given  nomina- 
tions to  the  council.  Certainly  the  students  in  the 
theatre  as  scliool  should  be  well  represented.  But  it 
would  be  a  good  opportunity  for  the  devising  of  fancy 
franchises.  Why  should  not  a  nomination  be  given  to 
the  upper  forms  of  a  neighbouring  public  school  (the 
nominee  himself  perhaps  being  of  full  age).'^  Eton 
could  probably  be  trusted  under  likely  circumstances 
to  return  a  Radical  member.  And  electoral  bodies,  of 
course,  could  be  formed  without  very  much  trouble 
from  among  the  frequenters  of  the  theatre  as  playhouse. 
Into  conditions  of  the   council's    tenure   we   need 


168        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

not  go.  Service  for  one  year  or  three  or  seven  or  a 
lifetime;  the  filHng  of  vacancies  now  and  then  by  co- 
option — these  are  important  but  mainly  circumstantial 
matters.  For  numbers  twelve  is  convenient,  twenty 
full  large.  But  the  question  of  the  council's  powers 
is  important  and  trenches  on  principle. 

Such  a  body,  we  must  assume,  would  find  itself  al- 
ready part  of  a  constitution.    But  within  these  limits 
it  would  be  the  legislative  authority  of  the 
The  council    theatre.    It  would  be  a  court  of  appeal :  the 
as  the  interpreter  both   of   the  constitution  and 

of^^^^^^^  of  its  own  laws.  It  would  be  the  target 
manage-  against  which  the  public  would  be  invited 

ment  to  hurl  their,  no  doubt,  numerous  com- 

plaints. And  if  it  did  not  get  complaints 
it  would  be  its  business  to  formulate  a  few;  for 
here  would  lie  its  greatest  constant  usefulness.  The 
council  should  be  the  collective  conscience  of  the 
theatre's  chief  official  —  the  director,  let  us  call  him. 
The  better  a  director  the  freer  hand  will  he  demand, 
but  he  will  not  wisely  want  that  freedom  which  is 
isolation.  In  any  artistic  enterprise  the  difficulties 
engendered  by  criticism  are  genuine  and  great.  Should 
it  always  be  listened  to;  should  it  ever  be  listened 
to?  Much  of  it  is  apt  to  be  hopelessly  uninstructed, 
much  more  of  it  —  educate  one's  critics  all  one 
will  —  is  unlikely  to  know  when  to  make  allowance 
for  an  artistic  intention  still  imperfectly  realized. 
The  sponsor  knows  that  if  he  does  not  resolutely 
pursue  his  own  path  he  is  lost,  but  it  may  be 
the  wrong  path  for  all  that.  Now  the  theatre  is  pecul- 
iarly susceptible  to  this  sort  of  trouble  in  both 
its  simple  and  its  com[)lex  forms.  To  begin  with, 
everybody  thinks  himself  competent  to  criticize  drama. 
He  is  a  modest  man  indeed  who  will  not  venture  to  say 
whether  a  play  or  its  yierformanco  is  good  or  bad. 
And,   indeed,  it  is  true  that  everybody  ought  to  be 


THE  THEATRE  AS  PLAYHOUSE       169 

competent,  in  some  degree,  to  criticize  drama;  there  is 
nothing  esoteric  about  the  art.  But  one  must  remem- 
ber that,  as  far  as  its  acting  goes,  not  only  an  actor's 
work  is  criticized,  but  inferentially  his  whole  person- 
ality, his  physical,  almost  his  moral,  being.  We 
must  not  wonder  that  he,  at  least,  is  sensitive  even  to 
morbidity.  Then,  again,  the  co-operation  in  drama  is 
so  complex  that  it  is  seldom  the  incidence  of  criticism, 
however  just  it  may  be  as  a  whole,  will  fall  justly. 
To  tell  who,  among  the  many  contributors,  is  really 
responsible  for  failure,  and  what  the  degree  of  blame, 
needs  a  very  acute  eye  indeed.  The  result,  as  we  have 
elsewhere  noted,  is  that,  while  criticism  is  ostensibly 
much  counted  on  in  the  theatre,  it  is  assessed,  one 
fears,  in  very  cynical  terms.  There  are  good  notices 
and  bad.  Praise  has  a  certain  commercial  value;  blame 
may  show  in  the  balance-sheet. 

But    with    immediate    commercial     considerations 
largely  ruled  out,  as  they  would  be  in  a  theatre  where  on 
the  one  side  was  a  classic  repertory  with  its 
prescriptive  claims  and  on  the  other  every      Where 
encouragement    to    be    patient    and    not      KiajJe 
panic-stricken   in  the  pursuit  of  the  un-      should  fall 
tried  thing,  one  would  be  inclined  to  urge 
a  director  rather  to  ignore  casual  criticism  altogether 
than  to  let  his  policy  be  influenced  by  it,  swayed  this 
way  and  that.     Every  soul  in  the  theatre  will  be  to 
some  degree  sensitive  to  what  is  said  about  them  — 
that  is  human  nature.    Very  salutary  indeed  that  they 
should  be,  just  so  long  as  the  tenor  of  their  work  be 
not  unreasoningly  deflected  by  it.     But  the  completer 
the  co-operation  of  actor,  author,  producer,  designer, 
and  the  more  perfect,  therefore,  this  organism  of  the 
theatre,  the  more  will  praise  and  blame  fall  upon  indi- 
viduals very  haphazardly.     Let  the  head  of  the  whole 
affair,  therefore,  take  all  the  blame  to  himself,  even 
though   he  leave   the  praise  to  be  appropriated  by 


170        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

whomsoever  it  will  comfort  most.  Then  he  will  be 
glad  enough,  the  director  —  if  he  is  not  to  become,  on 
the  rebound  from  subservience  to  the  polite  mob,  com- 
pletely Bourbon  —  of  a  chance  of  that  frank  question 
and  answer,  free  from  attack  and  defence,  which  a 
finely  working  conscience  can  supply.  And  it  is  for 
this  purpose  that  his  council  should  be  chiefly  fitted. 
They  would  have  power  over  him,  power  to  insist  that 
their  general  policy  should  be  carried  out,  and  if  he 
would  not,  or  if  he  could  not,  bring  them  to  like  his 
interpretation  or  amending  of  it,  to  make  him  resign. 
But  these  are  mere  penalty  provisions.  This  little 
parliament  of  the  theatre,  working  with  good  will,  a 
wise  director  being  keen  to  consult  it,  its  members 
having  just  enough  technical  knowledge  to  quicken 
the  discussions,  would  provide  something  like  that  col- 
lective mind  which  we  have  noted  as  the  peculiar  vir- 
tue and  strength  of  drama;  would  be,  in  fact,  in  kindred 
sort,  an  epitome  of  our  vision  of  the  theatre  at  large. 
The  council  would  formulate  criticism  of  its  own, 
constructively ,  one  hopes.  It  would  be  the  filter  through 
which  any  formal  public  complaints  must  be  passed. 
Its  meetings  should  be,  finally,  occasions  for  the  casting 
up  of  other  balance  sheets  than  those  which  the  busi- 
ness management  will  bring  before  it.  The  council  is 
the  one  body  to  which  one  can  recommend  the  pursuit 
of  self-satisfaction,  since,  taking  no  part  in  the  work 
but  being  a  part  of  the  theatre,  it  must  satisfy  itself 
continually  that  the  work  is  well  done.  And  it  might 
report  yearly  in  due  form  to  the  general  public  its  con- 
sidered opinion  of  the  theatre's  progress,  justify  policy, 
explain  good  fortune  and  bad.  It  should,  in  fact,  be 
for  the  public  the  Theatre  Articulate,  when  there  was 
need  to  say  anything  that  good  work  could  not  say  for 
itself.  One  would  liopo  thnt  /is  erections  might  inspire 
a  httle  interest  and  a  very  definite  confidence  be  reposed 
in  it. 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  171 

The  director  of  the  theatre  should  be  an  autocrat, 
and  that  his  autocracy  may  be  effective  it  must  be 
strictly  limited.  His  council  will  tell  him,  ^, 
for  instance,  to  do  what  he  likes.  AYithout  theatre's 
this  freedom,  illusory  though  it  must  sound,  director 
he  could  not  hope  to  do  anything  at  all.  and  his 
But  the  theatre,  school  and  playhouse  autocracy 
both,  company,  teachers,  students,  can  never  be  disci- 
plined into  an  automaton,  carrying  out  orders  without 
question,  whatever  the  theoretical  powers  over  them 
may  be.  And  if  any  such  institution  could  be  so  con- 
ducted it  would  lose  just  that  spirit  of  individual  and 
diverse  effort  which  alone  can  keep  it  a  healthy  living 
body.  Therefore  all  the  director's  ability  to  direct  and 
to  manage  (in  the  true  sense  of  the  word)  will  be  needed, 
every  ounce  weight  of  it;  and  it  must  be  free  to  flow  in 
this  one  direction.  He  must  be  ready  to  justify  to  his 
council  what  he  has  done:  if  he  had  first  to  spend 
strength  in  persuading  them  to  let  him  do  it  the  division 
of  effort  woidd  sink  him.  He  will  be  glad  enough, 
probably,  to  limit  his  freedom  towards  his  subordinates, 
to  lighten  its  burden  both  by  regulation  and  by  much 
delegation  of  power.  A  common  rule  for  the  students, 
common  conditions  of  service  for  staff  and  company, 
will  make  his  relations  with  them  the  easier.  He  must 
limit  his  powers,  too,  according  to  his  own  human  ca- 
pacity to  work,  and  to  work  well  —  according,  that  is, 
to  the  bent  of  his  talent.  He  is  not  very  likelj^  for 
instance,  to  be  an  able  financier.  That  qualification 
will  at  least,  one  supposes,  not  have  a  prominent  place 
in  the  list  when  he  is  chosen.  But  there  is  no  good 
reason,  once  the  scope  of  the  theatre's  work  is  deter- 
mined and  the  proportions  of  its  budget  adjusted, 
that  its  finance  should  not  be  a  department  almost,  if 
not  quite,  autonomous,  subject  to  the  council's  over- 
sight alone.  Encroachment  upon  a  director's  time  by 
such  matters  would  always  be  serious  enough;  and  it 


172        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

would  be  even  more  serious  if,  as  is  likely,  lie  resisted 
the  encroachment.  Indeed,  there  are  no  matters  in 
which  a  director,  right  for  everything  else,  might, 
through  sheer  inability  to  change  his  spots,  find  him- 
self more  often  in  the  wrong  than  money  matters.  He 
would  be  well  quit  of  their  burden. 

Another  limiting  of  power  and  lightening  of  responsi- 
bility wants  careful  compassing.  We  must  deal  at 
rj,,      .    .  length  with  the  problem  of  the  choosing  of 

of  plays  plays.    For  purely  practical  reasons  a  di- 

rector must,  over  this,  if  not  delegate  his 
powers,  at  least  contrive  to  extend  his  faculties 
very  considerably.  He  cannot  hope  to  read  a  tithe, 
or  even  to  consider  upon  a  fair  report  a  half,  of 
the  manuscript  plays  such  a  theatre  is  likely  to  receive. 
Yet  this  reading,  and  the  encouragement  or  considerate 
discouragement  of  the  author,  is  a  most  important 
part  of  the  theatre's  work,  too  important  to  be  entrusted 
to  private  secretaries  (who  in  any  case  would  not  be 
found  capable  of  doing  it),  or  to  be  left  at  the  point  of 
vague  and  polite  letter-writing.  Apart,  for  the  moment, 
from  the  theatre's  relations  to  the  authors  of  established 
reputation,  and  from  its  concern  with  the  playwriting 
work  of  its  students,  its  touch  with  potential  authorship, 
its  fostering  of  a  future  supply  of  play  material,  must 
be  a  matter  of  great  importance.  It  is  not  that  one 
would  try  to  "attach"  playwrights  to  the  theatre;  no 
return  to  even  a  remote  likeness  of  the  tamed  hack, 
turning  his  stuff  out  to  order,  would  be  either  possible 
(one  hopes)  or  desirable.  Even  when  a  young  drama- 
tist has  studied  in  the  theatre  as  school  the  sooner  he 
could  shake  free  of  its  influence  the  better;  and  if  the 
teaching  there  i.s  not  largely  a  preparation  for  the  shak- 
ing free  it  will  be  ill-considered.  The  best  use  any 
student  cnn  make  of  his  knowledge  is  to  forget  —  not 
the  knowledge  itself,  but  tlie  fact  that  he  knows  it. 
And  for   nobody   is  it  more  important  than  for  the 


THE  THEATRE  AS  PLAYHOUSE       173 

dramatist  to  escape  from  this  vicious  tendency,  common 
to  all  institutions  and  their  inmates,  to  revolve  per- 
petually in  the  circle  of  his  own  ideas. 

The  danger  to  the  dramatist  is  as  great  a  danger  to 
the  theatre.  There  will  be  the  classic  plays,  accepted 
material  both  for  study  and  performance. 
These  apart;  if  experience  counts  for  any-  J^® 
thing,  the  institutional  tendency  is  always  in^tftution- 
to  keep  in  with  a  school  of  writers,  whose  alism 
approximation  to  classic  rank  would  really 
seem  to  be  their  exceeding  dullness;  though  we  may 
more  charitably  see  them  as  seeking  safety  —  safety 
above  all  things !  —  in  the  empty  prisons  of  form, 
beautiful  houses  once,  but  only  for  the  souls  that  built 
them.  This  would  be  bad  enough;  but  far  worse  is  the 
trick  by  which,  with  an  air  half  apology,  half  reckless 
abandonment,  the  institution  brings  itself  up  to  date 
by  the  belated  patronage  of  some  revolutionary  drama- 
tist who,  a  generation  ago,  was  thought  to  be  going  to  do 
very  desperate  things  indeed,  but  somehow  has  never 
done  them,  nor  anything  else  worth  mentioning.  From 
such  arrant  foolishness  some  defence  must  be  devised; 
though  truly  it  is  not  easy  to  find  means  whereby  Satan 
shall  be  compelled  to  cast  out  Satan,  to  make  rules  by 
which  the  tyranny  of  rule  can  be  broken.  What  one 
needs,  of  course,  is  simply  an  atmosphere  in  which  the 
human  being  can  breathe  freely  and  be  human.  Then 
men  and  women,  who,  strangely  enough,  cannot  live 
without  breathing,  will  be  happy  to  come  and  work  in  it. 

There  clearly  must  be  in  any  important 
theatre  someone  of  authority  and  under-     The  need 
standing  whose  chief  business  it  will  be  to       °^  ^_^    ^^^ 
deal  with  plays   and  —  more  importantly      ^f  unusual 
—  with  playwrights.    He   must  have  au-     importance 
thority,  because  a  good  man  will  not  work 
without  it;  and  only  a  good  man,  a  man  of  individual 
ability,  will    be   listened   to   by   people  whose    inde- 


174         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

pendence  of  the  theatre  is  their  very  virtue.  And  he 
must  probably  be  given  a  playreading  secretary,  so 
that  his  mind  may  not  be  utterly  dulled  and  his  stand- 
ard hopelessly  lowered  by  the  contemplation,  day  in 
and  day  out,  of  the  miles  of  manuscript  upon  which 
there  is  no  possible  comment  but  "Thank  you." 
Every  few  miles  or  so,  for  all  that,  there  is  always 
something  worth  the  stopping  to  consider. 

From  the  attempts  of  the  younger  generation,  with 
their  study  of  the  technique  of  playwriting  and,  even 
better,  their  improved  chances  of  some  association  with 
a  theatre  in  being,  the  quite  impossible  play  is  dis- 
appearing.   It  is  amazing,  though,  how  literary  men  of 
distinction  will  still  produce  stretches  of  dialogue,  di- 
vided into  acts  and  scenes,  which  to  them,  apparently, 
look  like  a  play  and  (if  they  ever  read  them  aloud; 
though  that,  one  thinks,  is  doubtful)  sound  like  a  play, 
but  have  about  as  much  relation  to  a  play  as  a  picture 
of  a  house  has  to  the  house  itself.    But  out  of  the  train- 
ing in  technical  form  for  a  literary  generation  or  two, 
will  come,  one  hopes,  what  is  far  more  valuable,  its 
individualized  development.    This  may,  encouragingly 
enough,  run  into  strange  paths  and  to  the  use  of  un- 
tried material.    Now  it  will  be  a  not  unimportant  part 
of  the  business  of  the  play-reader  to  help,  if  he  can,  to 
make  these  experiments  fruitful.      To-day  the  best  in- 
tentioned  theatre  can  do  little  but  accept  a  play  or 
reject  it.    The  occasional  middle  course  —  suggestions 
of  this  alteration  and  that,  or  for  a  rewriting  with  a 
more  practised  collaborator  —  is  looked  on  coldly  by 
the  author  (if  he  can  resist  the  material  temptations 
attached  to  it),  who  only  sees  the  individual  growth  of 
his  itlea  cut  mercilessly  and  soullessly  to  a  common- 
place pattern.     And  the  manager  does  not  often  find 
the   plan   worth   the  trouble   it   involves.     But  while 
rejection  is  easy  enough,  acceptance  of   a  ])lay  is,  for 
any    theatre,   the  beginning  of  responsibilities  which 


THE  THEATRE  AS  PLAYHOUSE       175 

few  people  and  very  few  authors  seem  able  to  realize. 
Anything  like  a  reckless  policy  of  experiment  is  really 
not  possible.  For  not  only  the  author  and 
the  finance  of  the  theatre  is  involved  in  The 
failure.  A  play  is,  indeed,  very  much  a  difficulties 
house  of  art.  The  material,  the  decoration,  °  expen- 
may  be  fine.  But  unless  you  can  be  reason-  pj^y 
ably  sure  that  its  construction  is  sound,  production 
that  it  will  not  come  rattling  about  their 
ears,  you  cannot  in  decency  put  a  defenceless  company  of 
actors  into  it.  It  is  true  enough  that  very  professional- 
ized actors  can  often  be  unnecessarily  hard  upon  plays, 
which  are  more  simple  in  content  or  more  tentative  in 
method  than  the  robuster  stuff  they  have  grown  accus- 
tomed to.  But  the  question  of  a  play's  effectiveness 
can  never  be  begged.  And  if  actors  seek  for  this  quality 
first  of  all,  and  are  ready  to  ensue  it  rather  to  the  neglect 
of  others,  it  still  does  not  follow  that  the  test  of  pro- 
fessional performance  is  a  wholly  unfair  one.  For, 
after  all,  when  it  comes  to  the  point  of  performance 
the  actors  have  to  make  the  play  efiective.  And  if  the 
author  has  not  supplied  them  with  what  they  feel  to  be 
legitimate  means  they  will  turn  to  illegitimate  ones. 
It  may  well  be  that  in  their  anxiety  they  will,  after  all, 
have  only  obscured  the  play's  true  effects.  Then  the 
fault  is,  of  course,  theirs.  They  are  interpreters,  and 
have  no  right  to  force  the  dramatist's  intentions  into  the 
mould  of  their  absolute  habits.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
the  dramatist  cannot  convincingly  indicate  to  his  respon- 
sible interpreters  as  they  study  his  text  how  the  promise 
of  it  (so  to  speak)  will  be  fulfilled  in  performance  he 
courts  misfortune.  And  it  comes  to  this,  that  in  any 
theatre  where  the  actors  are  at  home  but  the  dramatists 
are  strangers  there  will  be  little  disposition  to  run  risks. 
It  may  be  said  that  with  eggs  in  so  many  baskets  one 
breakage  is  no  great  matter.  But  it  is  also  true  that 
both  the  time  and  space  for  production  of  plays  will  be 


176         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

very  precious  in  our  theatre;  there  will  certainly  be 
none  to  waste.  We  have  tried  to  provide  in  the  work 
of  the  school  for  a  modicum  of  sheerly  experimental 
production.  But  that  alone  will  not  take  us  very  far, 
and  it  must  rest  with  the  play-reader  of  the  theatre  to 
see  that  no  playwriter,  bringing  anything  of  dramatic 
value,  is  either  let  go  away  quite  empty  or,  indeed, 
quite  let  go. 

For  the  gist  of  such  a  task  one  can  lay  down  few 
laws;  its  very  feasibility  will  depend  upon  the  play- 
reader's  personality.     But  such  men  (and 
'r^^  women,   though   as   yet,   with   their   owa 

^  ^^"fi^^  ^^  ^  worlds  to  conquer,  more  rarely)  do  exist: 
tions  and  i^G^.  whose  personal  ambitions  have  been 
powers  absorbed  in  an  unselfish  regard  for  their 

art.  Theirs  are  not  very  dynamic  natures, 
perhaps,  but  they  are  receptive  and  sympathetic.  They 
have  dropped  the  burden  of  their  egoism,  have  broken 
the  many  mirrors  of  their  youthful  minds.  If  ill-luck 
has  left  them  disappointed  that  trait  may  yet  be 
sweetened  with  humour.  They  look  now  to  find  their 
account  in  the  passing  of  the  torch  to  swift  runners.* 

The  play-reader  would  have  behind  him  all  the  re- 
sources of  the  theatre,  within  which  there  is  every  sort 
of  close  collaboration  making  for  the  completed  drama 
except  this  one.  The  playwright  necessarily  works 
elsewhere.  For  all  the  association  of  his  student  days, 
for  all  the  active  collaboration  that  he  must  welcome  in 
the  completion  of  his  work,  if  he  docs  not,  in  its  initi- 
ation and  development,  keep  both  a  solitary  mind  and  a 
mind  in  contact  rather  with  realities  than  shows  — 
never  with  the  show  of  shows  at  least  —  he  will  have 

*  Such  men  are  to  be  found  in  most  universities.  But  there  the 
contact  with  a  monotonous  succession  of  immature  minds  may  dull 
them  till  in  time  they  react  to  nothinj^  save  the  obscurities  of  their 
own;  and  the  soft  nature  gnnvs  softer  or  tlie  hard  harder.  But  to 
be  dealing  with  fully,  variously  developed  men  is  another  matter. 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  177 

nothing  of  value  to  bring,  nothing  that  could  not  be 
better  improvised  within  the  theatre  walls.  It  is 
literally  true  that  a  fresher,  freer  drama  could  be  gener- 
ated by  actors  and  actresses  trained  to  elaborate  vari- 
ations upon  accepted  themes  than  results  from  the 
formal  literary  interference  of  the  dramatist,  who,  by 
refixing  the  worn  subjects  and  phrases  in  would-be 
novel  forms,  nailing  them  down  once  more  in  the  out- 
line of  a  play,  does  but  unpoverish  and  deaden  the 
theatre's  art. 

Our  problem,  however,  is  how  to  give  the  playwright 
backing,  even  when  it  must,  by  force  of  circumstances, 
fall  short  of  a  complete  production  of  his  play.  We  are 
concerned  here  mainly,  of  course,  with  the  adolescent 
playwright,  so  to  call  him;  still  adolescent  in  his  art, 
whatever  he  may  be  in  age  or  other  education.  It  is 
not  the  cheap  commodity  of  advice  we  see  being  handed 
out  to  him;  not  that  alone,  at  least,  though  when  that 
will  suffice  the  play-reader  can  be  free  with  it,  and, 
one  fears,  a  poor  play-reader  would  rely  on  it  over-much. 
There  would  be  far  more  worth  in  a  few  weeks'  asso- 
ciation with  the  theatre.  A  man's  work  might  be 
brought,  perhaps,  to  the  preliminary  stages  of  pro- 
duction, there  being  admittedly  no  chance  of  taking  it 
further.  But  it  might  be  handed  for  a  few  days  to  a 
seminar  of  the  students,  or  discussed  with  the  author 
and  play-reader  by  a  committee  of  such  of  the  actors 
and  actresses  as  would  be  likely  players  of  it;  talks 
even  with  producers  and  designers  would  not  be  — 
should  not  be,  in  a  sensitive  author's  mind  —  barren  of 
result.  Not  only  the  contact  with  individuals  would 
count,  but  the  dramatist's  entry,  even  for  that  little 
time,  into  the  theatre's  general  scheme  of  collaboration. 
Attendance  at  rehearsals,  at  play-readings,  at  the  dis- 
cussion of  productions:  these  are  things  that  cannot  be 
offered  by  the  ordinary  theatres  of  to-day,  where,  with 
all  eyes  to  performance,  nothing  else  counting  except 


178        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

as  cost,  they  are  scamped  and  rushed  —  hectic,  irritable 
affairs,  best  concealed.  But  when  the  study  of  the  art 
is  an  end  in  itself,  and  perfected  co-operation  the 
recognized  means  to  that  end,  a  visit  to  a  theatre  may 
come  to  mean  something  other  than  the  moral  dis- 
comfort of  intruding  upon  a  few  painful  rehearsals  or 
indifferently  sitting  out  a  show. 

One  would  have  hopes,  too,  that  the  atmosphere  of 
this  theatre  (to  venture  upon  that  vague  and  hack- 
neyed phrase)  might  be  a  very  sane  one.  It  is  not  less 
true  of  playwrights  than  of  other  people  who  plan 
things  on  paper  —  and  really  a  written  play  is  no  more 
than  our  plan,  our  theory,  of  what  we  hope  the  com- 
pleted thing  will  be  —  that  divorce  from  the  practical 
difficulties  of  bringing  them  to  being  is  but  too  apt  to 
turn  would-be  servants  of  the  single  cause  into  sectaries, 
righteous  in  their  own  eyes,  since  they  see  but  them- 
selves matched  against  chaos.  In  no  art,  certainly,  are 
the  pretensions  of  the  theorist  hollower,  or  the  backings- 
up  of  phrases  by  phrases  more  vain.  There  is  room  in 
the  theatre  for  both  the  reformer  and  the  rebel,  and  for 
the  conventicle  as  well  as  for  the  Church.  But  there 
is  no  health  whatever  in  the  editing  of  tracts  by  scholars 
(whose  view  of  the  stage  is  like  the  Swiss  mountain- 
eer's of  the  Mediterranean),  in  the  drawing  of  two- 
dimensional  designs  for  the  three-dimensional  theatre, 
nor  —  to  outrage  the  illustration  a  little  —  in  the 
writing  of  one-dimensional  plays  for  many-dimensional 
acting.  All  this  may  be  excusable  enough  when,  as 
now,  the  disastrous  conditions  of  the  theatre  exclude 
from  its  service  man  after  man  whose  scholarship, 
artistry,  or  inspiration  asks  some  further  encourage- 
ment and  recompense  than  cash  in  hand.  But,  when 
better  encouragement  is  to  be  had,  it  will  be  well  to 
remember  that  the  art  of  tlie  drama  is  as  pragmatical 
as  the  art  of  architecture,  and  most  effectively  to  be 
preached  by  practice. 


THE    THEATRE    AS    PLAYHOUSE  179 

While   the  play-reader  himself   should   have   every 

latitude  in  granting  the  freedom  of  the  theatre  to  the 

potential  playwright,  whether,  when  there 

was  a  direct  question  of  the  production  A  third 

of   a  play,   his   recommendation   and   the  voice 

]•       i.     '  i.  •     i.-  11  needed 

dn-ector  s   acceptance   or   rejection   would  .    ,, 

cover  the  ground  of  this  most  important         choosing 
business,  is  to  be  doubted.    If  not,  it  being  of  plays 

hardly  practicable  to  turn  director  and  play  ^ 
reader  into  a  committee  of  two  with  equalized  powers, 
the  only  feasible  plan  seems  to  be  the  addition  of  a  third 
authority.*  We  have  rejected  the  notion  of  any  large 
committee  of  actors  to  exercise  this  power.  Schemes 
by  which  the  students  or  the  actors  or  the  council  them- 
selves or  committees  elected  by  the  audience  might 
have  power  to  dictate  one  production  in  so  many  are 
really  hardly  worth  playing  with.  The  provision  of 
such  backdoors  is  a  token  of  weakness,  and  the  use  of 
them  generally  a  demoralizing  business.  The  choice  of 
plays  will  be  a  dominant  part  of  the  theatre's  policy, 
and  it  must,  above  all  things,  show  consistency  of 
purpose.  For  this  reason  much  could  be  said  for  letting 
the  director's  be  the  sole  voice  in  the  matter.  In  a 
theatre  where  his  other  work  left  him  time  to  grapple 
with  it  —  could  he  be  certain,  too,  of  ideal  relations 
with  his  play-reader  —  this  probably,  for  mere  sim- 
plicity's sake,  would  come  so  to  be.  But,  apart  from 
the  amount  of  detached  attention  involved,  there  is 
the  perennial  danger  of  hardening  taste  and  nan'owing 
mind,  in  no  direction  likely  to  be  greater  than  in 
the  choice  of  plays.  The  third  authority,  then,  must 
be  someone  who  can  hope  to  keep  himself  as  free  as 
humanly  may  be  from  this  particular  risk.  And,  while 
the  play-reader  would  try  to  bring  the  playwright  into 

*  This  plan  is  worked  out,  as  are  most  of  the  others  for  the  staff 
of  the  theatre  as  playhouse,  in  "The  Scheme  and  Estunates  for  a 
National  Theatre." 


180         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

tentative  collaboration  with  the  theatre's  work,  the 
part  of  this  third  chooser  of  plays  would  be  to  keep  out 
of  touch  with  it  altogether.  He  should  never  be  tempted 
to  consider  plays  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  ease 
with  which  the  theatre  could  produce  them,  never  for 
their  sheer  effectiveness  or  their  chances  of  immediate 
success.  Ideally  he  should  possess  one  of  those  sceptical, 
critical,  troublous  minds,  unattachable  to  any  move- 
ment, frankly  at  odds  with  acquiescence.  He  should  be 
a  discoverer  of  the  talent  that  would  not  be  drawTi 
into  the  theatre's  orbit.  One  sees  him,  perhaps, 
travelling  on  its  behalf.  He  would  be  constantly 
outvoted  in  the  committee  of  three.  That  would 
not  matter.  The  flavour  of  his  opinion  would 
abide. 

These  limitations  noted  —  the  financial  and  the  play- 
choosing,  the  second  being  less  really  a  limitation  of 
power  than  an  extension  of  faculty  —  to  enumerate 
the  director's  positive  tasks  would  be  but  to  unply 
limitations  the  more.  Nor  will  an  attempt  to  describe 
a  desirable  personality  for  the  post  be  of  much  more 
avail.  To  say  that  the  ideal  director  must  be  born  and 
not  made  is  iDut  a  way  of  saying  that  the  man  and  his 
qualities  —  the  qualities  to  fit  the  man,  rather  —  can 
but  emerge  from  the  development  of  the  institution 
itself;  for  his  abilities  must  be  as  near  as  may  be  an 
epitomized  reflection  of  its  activities.  And,  in  addition, 
he  must  have  the  administrative  qualities 
The  that  should  pertain  to  direction  anywhere, 

fallacy  of  Well,  there  are  no  such  people.  And  the 
trying  to  ^^^^  ^£  ^jj  government  is  the  story  of  the 

thing^fght  failure  to  find  them,  the  wisdom  of  the 
at  once  search,   and   the  necessity  of  putting  up 

with  the  next  best  thing. 

But  for  the  direction  of  the  search  a  principle  is 
involved  which  it  may  be  as  well,  as  far  as  this 
theatre  is  concerned,  to  examine. 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  181 

If  we  do  not  look  for  the  institution  itself,  with  its 
accumulating  traditions,  to  give  birth  to  the  director,* 
and  by  its  own  virtue  to  make  up  for  his  inevitable 
deficiencies,  then  not  only  this  plan,  but  the  very  idea 
of  such  a  theatre  as  this,  had  l^etter  be  scrapped.  And 
there  is  much  to  be  said  from  this  standpoint.  The 
argument,  familiar  to  every  enemy  of  an  academy, 
that,  if  you  confine  an  art  within  set  boundaries  which 
are  alien  to  its  inner  purposes,  you  do,  ipso  facto,  pre- 
vent its  healthy  development,  is  doubtless  a  strong  one. 
But  the  theatre,  it  must  be  remembered,  depends,  as 
no  other  art  does,  upon  organization.  Of  necessity 
more  co-operative  than  any  other,  its  workers  profit 
most  by  the  permanencies  of  an  institution.  We  may 
at  least  look  round  at  this  moment  and  justifiably  pro- 
test that  it  has  profited  enough,  and  suffered  too  much, 
from  the  vagaries  of  individual  genius.  Within  the 
art's  generous  boundaries  there  should  be  room,  no 
doubt,  for  two  policies  —  institutional  and  free,  tra- 
ditional and  iconoclastic;  the  one  policy  does  not  pros- 
per, indeed,  at  more  than  a  brickbat's  range  from  the 
other.  But  the  "free"  theatres,  dependent  upon  some 
individual  of  genius  or  some  lucky  combination  of 
talent,  had  better  remain,  organically,  comparatively 
simple  affairs.  Then  there  need  be  no  regret  at  their 
natural  perishing  when  the  circumstances  that  sus- 
tained them  change;  and,  above  all,  there  sliould  be  no 
attempt  to  keep  them  artificially  alive.  Lilies  that 
fester  smell  far  v.  '^^'se  than  the  wholesome  cabbage. 
But  a  continued  new  creation  of  elaborately  orgiuiized 
institutions  is  not  to  be  faced.  These,  if  they  are  de- 
sirable at  all,  must  be  designed  to  endure,  and  an  in- 
evitable condition  of  their  endurance  will  be  for  the 

*  Whether,  a  century  hence,  the  man  apjwinted  were  actually  a 
product  of  the  theatre,  or  an  outsider,  is  a  small  matter  if  his  pro- 
fessional qualities  were  those  which  it  is  the  theatre's  object  to 
cultivate. 


182         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

theatre  itself,  and,  above  all,  the  idea  of  the  theatre,  to 
take  precedence  of  any  individual  talent. 

Now,  in  practice,  this  condition  will  rule  out  all  sorts 
of  attractively  easy  plans  by  which  a  theatre  may  be 
brought  at  high  speed  to  artistic  eminence.  Find  the 
director  of  outstanding  ability,  give  him  his  head,  fill 
his  pocket,  and  the  thing  is  done.  Such  is  the  common 
cry.  That  the  thing  might  be  begun  in  such  a  way  is 
possible.  Indeed,  as  things  generally,  like  people,  do 
not  begin  as  they  go  on  it  might  be  the  best  way  to 
begin.  But  from  the  very  beginning  such  a  director 
would  have  to  plan  his  own  obliteration;  and  it  would 
not  be  an  easy  matter,  though  he  were  a  model  of  un- 
selfishness, both  to  suppress  himself  and  to  advantage 
the  theatre  to  the  full  by  his  personal  prestige.  He 
may  make  the  best  job  possible  of  carrying  his  burden 
up  the  first  steep  ascent,  but  if  he  cannot  hand  it  over 
when  the  level  is  reached,  so  that  he  stands  from  be- 
neath it  quite  unnoticeably,  his  work  will  have  been 
Wasted.  In  his  staff,  his  company,  and  students  he 
must  inoculate  loyalty  to  the  theatre,  not  to  himself. 
And  while  it  may  be  called  the  United  States  —  or  the 
British  —  or  the  Pittsburg  —  or  Nottingham  —  The- 
atre, yet  if  from  bej^ond  the  memory  of  man  (which 
dates  back  in  such  matters  for  five  or  ten  years)  the 
work  there  is  too  much  associated  with  his  name,  the 
public  (that  always  likes  something  to  complain  about) 
will  take  offence  at  his  leaving.  So  tlic  problem  pre- 
sented is  very  difficult;  in  the  flush  of  success,  more- 
over, it  is  always  ignored.* 

One  need  not  press  the  point  further;  and  it  is  ob- 
vious that  to  complicate  the  difficulty  with  financial 

*  ^Vlle^e  was  Antoine's  theatre  without  Antoine?  And,  con- 
verscly>  the  Orfoon  sw;ill(iwcd  him  like  a  Rrave.  AVhy  could  not 
the  Lcssiiif^  Thcutro  Conijjaiiy  liold  logollicr  after  Brahni's  death? 
The  'I'heAlre  Fraur.iis  survives  nil  defections.  Is  that  only  because 
of  its  uatiuual  character  and  its  subsidy? 


THE  THEATRE  AS  PLAYHOUSE       183 

considerations  will  greatly  worsen  it.  The  farming 
out  of  such  an  enterprise,  the  sharing  of  profits  (for  one 
thing,  there  should  be  no  such  thing  as  the  making  of 
profits) — the  more  admirable,  from  what  is  called  a 
business  point  of  view,  such  plans  are,  the  more  futile, 
shortsighted,  destructive  are  they,  as  a  rule,  to  the  final 
purpose  of  the  theatre. 

All  these  things  should  be  obvious.  Compromise  of 
some  sort,  when  things  come  to  the  starting-point,  there 
has  always  to  be.  One  must  do  as  one  can,  and  take 
the  openings  that  offer.  But  one  should  be  quite  cer- 
tain that  it  is  compromise  and  opportunism,  and  should 
know  where  the  right  road  lies.  There  is  an  absolute 
morality  in  business  methods,  no  doubt,  but  its  pretended 
application  to  artistic  enterprise  is  too  often  a  shifting  of 
responsibility,  if  not,  indeed,  a  left-handed  attempt  at 
sabotage.  That  may  seem  a  hard  saying;  but  one  has 
seen  too  many  expeditions  in  altruism  bidden  to  sustain 
themselves  upon  terms  that  their  sponsors  would  scoff 
at  had  they  been  concerned  with  commercial  profit, 
not  to  be  sore  sometimes  at  the  spectacle  of  the  right 
hand  of  the  man  of  business  outstretched  to  receive 
congratulations  upon  his  public  spirit. 

A  functionary  barely  existent  in  the  theatre  of  to-day, 
but  of  some  importance  to  such  a  scheme  as  this,  would 
be  the  librarian.    His  work  would  be  two- 
fold.   For  the  playhouse  he  should  be  con-      The 
cerned  to   conserve  tradition.     There  he      librarian; 

would  be  the  permanent  head  of  the  staff     ^J'/^^^^^ 

/PI  1     1       i  ii  o*  prompt 

of  prompters  (a  further  word  about  them      books ;  the 

soon),  and  responsible  for  the  proper  re-     conserving 

cording  of  each  play's  production;  for  the     of  tradition 

writing  of  a  small  history  of  its  casting 

and  development;  for  the  preservation  in  some  inter- 

pretable  form  of  the  designs  for  costumes  and  scenery; 

and,  above  all,  for  the  making  of  that  particular  record 

known  as  the  prompt  book.     This  last  is  a  difficult 


184         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

business,  mostly  muddled  nowadays,  for  no  one  con- 
cerned seems  to  know  quite  what  is  wanted.    No  pro- 
ducer but  has  been  driven  distracted,  at  the  revival  of 
a  play,  by  a  carelessly  marked  prompt  book.     After 
tangling  himself  and  his  company  for  a  few  days  in  its 
toils  he  finds  it  simpler  to  cut  loose  and  begin  again. 
But  meticulously  marked  books,  for  all  their  fascina- 
tion (perhaps  only  a  producer  feels  it),  are  even  more 
dangerous  friends.    For,  as  a  rule,  they  show  no  distinc- 
tion between  the  main  features  of  the  play's  scheme  — 
that  skeleton  upon  which  the  rest  is  hung  —  and  all 
the  minor  matters,  positions,  movements,  which  not 
only  can  be  varied  without  injury,  but  very  constantly 
should  be  if  its  acting  is  not  to  stiffen.    To  rehearse  a 
play  by  such  a  guide  is  a  poor  business  and  takes  the 
heart  out  of  everyone  concerned.     The  principles  of 
prompt-book  making  will  be  implicit  in  our  later  dis- 
cussion of  the  production  of  the  play  itself.     But  in 
practice  it  can,   at  least,   be  no  mechanical  matter. 
One  might  compare  it  to  the  full  score  of  an  opera,  but 
that  there  the  effects  of  the  instruments  are  calculable, 
more  or  less.    Now,  even  if  we  could  tie  our  actors  to 
notes  in  their  voices  and  precise  liftings  of  the  eye- 
brows, we  presumably  would  not  —  cinema  and  gramo- 
phone records  would  be  of  little  positive  value.     The 
secret  of  the  art  of  acting  and  its  whole  glory  lies  in 
this  very  impossibility  of  reducing  it  to  set  terms.    The 
prompt  book  must  rather  record,  then,  the  meaning  of 
what  was  done.     It  should  be  an  over-writing  of  the 
play.     Not   that   one   wants   anything   remotely   like 
what  is  called  the  novelization  of  a  drama.    Better  to 
retain  and  elaborate  a  strict  technique  of  expression 
by  which  to  detail  entrance,  exit,  and  movement  in 
general;  that  will  deter  the  recorder  from  indulging  in 
fanciful  phrasing  of  his  own.     On  the  other  hand,  the 
comparative  importance  of  these  movements  and  of 
the  cadences  of  the  dialogue  and  their  purpose  needs 


THE  THEATRE  AS  PLAYHOUSE       185 

to  be  indicated;  above  all  does  the  distinction  between 
essential  and  permissive  things.  The  dramatist  him- 
self, one  presumes,  will  so  annotate  his  work  as  to  give 
its  interpreters  what  guidance  he  thinks  necessary  for 
their  imaginative  approach  to  it.  There  is  an  art  in 
doing  this  so  as  to  feed  without  choking  the  actor's 
imagination.  But  the  prompt-book  record  should 
differ  in  kind,  should  be  clear  statement  of  what  was 
done,  implication  merely  of  what  should  be.  Acting 
is  an  ephemeral  art,  but  it  is  an  encouragement  to 
continuity  of  effort  that  its  achievements  should  be 
intelligibly  enshrined  and  its  traditions  formed  and 
preserved. 

The  library  —  the  room  full  of  books  —  would  be  a 
necessary  resource  for  both  playhouse  and  school.  If 
one  considers  all  the  subjects  upon  which  workers  in  the 
theatre  need  to  be  currently  informed  the  very  number 
of  books  involved  is  a  large  one.  Books  on  archi- 
tecture, costume,  manners  and  customs,  topography, 
not  to  mention  a  quite  surprising  amount  of  writing 
upon  the  art  of  the  theatre  itself,  will  make  up  but  a 
part  of  the  list.  And  a  certain  amount  of  pure  research 
work  would  doubtless  be  sponsored  by  the  school, 
which  must  therefore  be  equipped  for  it.  Where  better 
could  the  visiting  student  find  his  books  with  less 
chance  of  suffocating  his  learning  in  the  dust  of  them? 
With  regard  to  the  corps  of  prompters  —  let  us  prefer 
the  old-fashioned  simplicity  of  this  slight  misnomer 
to  the  pretentiously  exact  "  assistant  stage- 
manager  "— there  is  a  little  to  be  said.  pj-Q^ptg^s 
The  job  —  once  its  drudgery  were  re-  themselves 
duced  to  a  minimum  by  the  means  of  or- 
ganization and  good  stage  machinery  —  is  such  an 
educative  one  that  it  should,  if  possible,  be  left  for  the 
students  and  beginners  to  tackle.  A  sharp  dose  of  the 
work,  even  at  its  crudest,  inoculates  a  man  well  enough 
with  the  practical  habit  of  the  stage,  but  refine  it  as 


186         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

one  may  It  has  not  many  more  possibilities  of  develop- 
ment than  has  the  kindred  job  of  fagging  at  a  public 
school.  It  is  a  task  that  everyone  should  be  keen 
enough  to  undertake,  and  no  one  should  want  to  stick 
at.  A  man  who  did  want  to  would  be  already  devital- 
izing into  one  of  those  bits  of  dead  wood  which  must  be 
resolutely  cut  away  from  the  theatre  tree. 

This  prompter's  job  should  be  practised  first  in  one 
of  the  play-study  seminars,  then  in  the  experimental 
staging  of  a  play  by  the  students,  finally  in  a  full- 
fledged  production  or  two.  He  is  the  secretary,  the 
convener,  the  recorder,  the  remembrancer.  A  passive 
agent  for  the  greater  part  of  the  time,  he  is  best  able  to 
soak  in  the  general  effect  of  the  work  done.  \Mien  a 
student  has  been  concentrating  his  attention  first  in 
one  direction,  then  in  another,  in  no  better  way  will 
he  recover  a  conspectus  of  the  whole  than  by  taking 
the  prompter's  seat.  He  must  master  there  the  tech- 
nique of  recording  the  production  as  it  develops;  a 
complex  and  rather  troublesome  business  this  should  be 
for  him,  as  we  have  seen,  but  well  worth  the  trouble  to 
anyone  who  is  later  to  be  concerned  in  producing  plays, 
and  possibly  in  itself,  by  reason  of  the  close  attention 
and  the  powers  of  clear  exposition  that  it  needs,  an 
educational  study. 

We  come  now  to  the  staging  of  plays;  and,  in  the 

first  place,  let  us  decide  that  shoddy  has  no  place  in  the 

theatre.     Just  because  some  scenery  may  be 

u^u^       meant'  to    create    an    illusion,    because    the 
workshop 

rooms  that  one  sees  are  not  real  rooms, 
nor  their  furniture  amenable  to  scrutiny,  nor  to  more 
than  a  reasonable  resistance  to  usage,  it  does  not 
follow  that  such  things  arc,  in  any  derogatory  sense, 
shams. 

The  worst  of  illusion  in  stage  scenery  has  ever  been 
that  it  lends  itself  to  clai)traj),  to  tricks;  and  one  of  the 
best  things  to  be  said  about  formal  decoration  is  that  it 


THE  THEATRE  AS  PLAYHOUSE       187 

sets  a  sterner  standard  of  accomplishment.  Craftsman- 
ship, and  not  craft,  will  be  called  for;  the  work  must  be 
beautiful  and  right  in  itself.  Is  it  too  fanciful  to  con- 
tend that  in  the  theatre  the  various  sorts  of  shoddiness 
are  interdependent?  One  need  not  hold  that  we  can 
])romote  sound  thinking  in  our  playwrights  by  means 
of  sound  carpentry  on  the  stage.  But,  conversely,  it 
is  undoubtedly  true  that  fineness  of  feeling  in  the 
essentials  of  the  dramatic  art  must,  for  the  sake  of  its 
own  preserv^ation,  extend  itself  to  a  care  for  the  fitness 
of  the  practical  accessories,  even  the  smallest.  Inter- 
dependence in  the  theatre  is  complete.  When  it  is  not, 
something  is  functioning  WTongly  or  not  functioning 
at  all.  But  for  ill,  as  well  as  good,  the  rule  holds;  and 
slovenliness  in  the  setting  of  a  chair  will  react  through- 
out the  whole  body  of  work,  so  subtly  at  first,  perhaps, 
as  to  be  worth  no  comment;  and  coarser  tastes  may  for 
long  be  impervious  to  the  effects.  But  finally  impover- 
ishment is  sure. 

We  must  think  w^ell,  however,  what  we  mean  by  fit- 
ness. The  actor's  performance  of  Charles  Surface  will 
hardly  be  improved  by  his  sitting  before  the  public 
upon  a  genuine  Chippendale  chair,  though  one  might 
argue  that  some  appreciation  of  the  merits  of  Chippen- 
dale would  not  come  amiss  as  a  flavouring  to  his  study 
of  Joseph;  and  Moses,  no  doubt,  had  a  good  working 
knowledge,  to  be  evidenced  in  glance  and  gesture,  of 
objets  d'art  et  de  vertu.  But  we  may  certainly  contend 
that,  starting  from  the  nucleus  of  four  boards  and  a 
passion,  the  passion  may  be  just  a  little  sublimated  by 
the  boards  being  well  chosen  and,  perhaps,  scrubbed; 
till,  arriving  at  the  complex  mechanism  of  the  modern 
theatre,  there  is  no  part  of  it,  not  the  furnishing  of  the 
stage,  nor  the  dressing-rooms,  not  the  artistic  lives  of 
the  actors,  nor  the  trade  pride  of  the  carpenters,  but 
will  reflect  and  be  reflected  in  the  spirit  of  the  whole. 

Really  it  stands  to  reason.    For  our  aim  is  to  make  of 


188        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

the  theatre  a  place  where  the  senses  are  sharpened 
to  immediate  response,  most  immediately  in  the 
actors,  contributively  in  all  the  workers  ascendant 
or  distributed,  resultantly  in  the  audience.  It  fol- 
lows —  does  it  not?  —  that  there  will  be  response  to 
coarse  stimuli  as  to  fine,  and  always  an  easier  letting 
down  into  the  slough  of  bad  taste  than  a  tuning  up 
to  good.  Therefore  one  cannot  afford  to  knock  a  nail 
in  wrong. 

It  follows  then  that  the  decoration  and  furnishing  oj 
a  play  are  as  integral  a  part  of  the  theatre's  work  as  its 
study  and  acting,  and  are  to  be  admitted  to  the  same 
co-ordination.  Hence  the  need,  in  any  theatre  aspiring 
to  completeness,  of  a  studio,  or,  more  properly,  a  work- 
shop. By  preferring  that  term  we  both  emphasize, 
again,  the  uselessness  for  these  purposes  of  mere  paper 
designing  and  the  practical  impossibility  of  carrjang  oix 
very  much  abstract  study.  For  this  last,  indeed,  there 
should  be  not  much  need.  The  aesthetic  principles  in- 
volved are  not  rooted  in  dramatic  art  any  more  than  is 
the  craft  of  carpentry  that  will,  among  others,  be 
practised  in  the  same  connection. 

In  the  theatre  as  school  a  certain  amount  of  teaching 
of  the  subject  can  be  devised.  There  can  be  lectures  at 
large  on  the  history,  the  theory,  and  practice  of  scenic 
decoration  and  costiane  design.  But  a  great  deal  moro 
learning  can  be  done  by  students  admitted  to  watch 
and  assist  in  the  carrying  out  of  the  practical  work. 
Not  much  good  will  come,  however,  from  playing  about 
with  half-inch  models.  That  is  a  showy  business,  but 
to  use  such  things  for  show  is  to  misuse  them.  They 
are  properly  workmen's  devices  —  no  more  —  and  not 
very  efficient  ones  at  that.  Scale  drawings,  though 
not  so  attractive,  are  far  more  useful. 

The  workshop,  then,  must  be  ])rimarily  a  part  of  the 
theatre  as  playhouse,  though  it  may  pass  as  many  stu- 
dent apprentices  tlirough  a  course  of  its  work  as  it  can 


THE    THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  189 

do,  profitably  to  them,  and  witnout  deflecting  its  own 

purposes  to  any  sort  of  dilettantism. 

Now  comes  the  question  what  proportion  of  time, 

attention,  and  energy  should  a  theatre  give  to  this  side 

of  its  work?    Note  that  in  the  last  analysis 

it  will  be  energy  and  not  merely  money  that      The 

will  be  absorbed.     Lavish  expenditure  is,      amount  of 

no  doubt,  a  tempting  devil:  but  it  is  the      f  ^^  ^°°  ° 
,       .  ■>  1  1  •     I  oe  given  to 

busmess  manager  s  task  to  put  this   be-      stage 

hind  us.  The  more  seductive  deep  sea,  decoration 
however,  is  the  notion  that  fine  artistry 
and  a  free  hand  are  in  themselves  all-sufficient  and 
utterly  desirable.  But  far  better  four  boards,  creaky 
and  unscrubbed,  as  a  stage  for  our  passion  than  that  it 
should  be  choked  by  a  collection  of  bric-a-brac.  And 
what  else  do  scenery,  furniture,  costumes,  however 
fine  in  themselves,  accumulate  into  if  they  have  not 
the  right  and  intimate  relation  to  the  production  as  a 
whole?  And  in  nineteen  cases  out  of  twenty  their  re- 
lation should  be  subordinate  also.  For  to  surround  a 
play  with  foreign  bodies  of  scenery  and  costume  which, 
alien  in  origin  and  in  intention,  only  obscure  its  mean- 
ing while  they  pretend  to  illustrate  it,  is  an  artistic 
crime.  And  a  greater  one  still  is  the  attempt  to  bolster 
up  poverty  of  acting  (the  hea  t's  blood  of  all  true  inter- 
pretation) by  even  the  most  genuine  accessory  riches, 
however  brilliant,  however  attractive  they  may  be. 

The  right  apportionment  of  energy,  it  will  be  said, 
will  differ  with  each  production.  No  doubt;  and  we 
have  admitted  the  twentieth  play  to  which  sheer  beauty 
of  staging  may  be  the  most  important  contribution. 
But  we  are  searching  for  a  formula  which  will  serve 
generally,  and  if  there  were  aesthetic,  as  there  are  scien- 
tific, laws  some  such  definition  as  the  following  might 
possibly  be  valid.  Allow  for  all  the  energy  that  can 
profitably  be  expended  upon  the  simple  interpretation 
of  a  play,  then  the  surplus  and  the  extra  energy  and 


190         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE  ^ 

enthusiasm  engendered  by  the  work  of  interpretation 
will  allow  for  just  so  much  external  beautifying  as  will 
properly  complete  the  whole.  If  one  could  follow  such 
a  rule  strictly  the  result  might  be  a  simplicity  of  pres- 
entation almost  unbearably  severe.  But  while  it 
cannot  be  worked  out  as  a  formula,  it  can  stand  as  a 
safeguard  against  temptation.  And  it  does  certainly 
point  the  way  to  a  rule  of  simplicity  for  the  great  play 
which  needs  nothing  more,  which  will  by  its  own  vir- 
tues absorb  the  attention  of  an  audience  as  it  should 
have  accounted  for  the  full  energies  of  the  actors;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  a  latitude  of  fancy  in  embroi- 
dering the  slighter  fabrics,  which  do  not  by  their  own 
strength  and  completeness  forbid  such  attentions. 

Undue  emphasis,  one  feels,  has  been  laid  of  late  years 
upon  stage  decoration.     There  was,  indeed,   a  crying 

need  both  for  the  practical  reformer  and 
Tne  easy  ^j^g  inspired  prophet.  Scene-painting  had 
visual  touched  depths  of  dullness,  ugliness,  and 

appeal  ineptitude  from  which  a  few  instances  of 

honourable  craftsmanship  and  creditable 
imagination  coidd  not  save  it,  while  the  occasional  in- 
tervention of  an  artist  of  academic  reputation,  superior 
and  aloof,  made  only  specious  pretence  at  a  rescue. 
But  the  trail  of  reform  once  blazed,  there  was  a  rush  to 
it:  the  reason  being,  one  fears,  that  this  is  such  an  easy 
way  to  the  "new"  theatre,  while  it  looks  even  easier 
than  it  is.  If  sticks  and  canvas  were  the  main  content 
of  drama,  and  limelight  the  liveliest  thing  about  it, 
what  a  simple  business  it  would  be!  Who  suddenly 
discovered  that  a  bare  stage,  bounded  by  a  wall  with 
its  whitewash  gone  grey,  and  lit  by  a  shaft  of  sunlight 
from  the  dust-stained  windows  above,  was  in  itself  a 
most  decorative  thing?  It  is  upon  these  phenomena,  . 
commonplace  enough  to  theatre  folk,  but  always  im- 
pressive, one  would  say,  to  the  stranger  straying  in  the 
daytime  into  the  empty,  echoing,  shrouded  house,  that 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  191 

the  new  gospel  was  based.  It  was  indeed  necessary  to 
strip  scenery  of  its  sophistications  and  become  again 
as  little  children  in  the  matter.  But  we  do  not  want  to 
go  on  playing  about  forever  with  these  pseudo-simplici- 
ties as  with  toys,  and  playing  (it  really  is!)  upon  the 
innocency  of  the  public.  There  are  signs,  however,  that 
the  public  begin  to  be  as  bored  by  them  as  for  some 
time  past  the  initiate  have  been. 

But  there  is  always  the  temptation  of  the  easiest 
way.  And  nothing  is  easier  in  the  theatre  than  to  over- 
shadow the  mental-emotional  complexity  of  the  drama, 
with  its  sharp  demand  upon  our  full  attention,  by  the 
primitive  appeal  to  the  eye  or  by  the  hypnosis  of  sound 
—  melodious  dronings  lulling  the  intelligence  to  sleep. 
Which  of  us  has  not  heard  entranced  playgoers,  as  they 
passed  out  from  some  tremendously  decorated,  softly 
boohooing  seance  to  the  clattering  reality  of  the  streets, 
exclaiming:  "How  beautiful!  How  artistic!"  Though 
what  it  was  all  about  they  no  more  knew  than  did  old 
Caspar  the  cause  of  the  battle  of  Blenheim! 

Theoretically,  every  play  should  be  approached  by 
its  decorator  as  the  actors  approach  it.  He  also  is  to 
interpret  it  to  the  full  extent  of  his  —  and  of  its  own  — 
capacity  for  individual  expression.  But  in  practice  one 
had  better  admit  the  two  admirable  safeguards  against 
excess  of  zeal  —  convention  and  economy. 

Quite  apart  from  the  economy  which  a  business- 
manager,  balancing  one  branch  of  the  theatre's  work 
against  another,  will  very  wisely  impose  on 
the  workshop,  there  is  an  artistic  inhi-  economy 
bition  of  over-expenditure  of  energy  or 
money  upon  the  decoration  of  any  play.  For,  after  all, 
its  production  is  an  ephemeral  thing.  And  if,  time  and 
time  again,  everything  must  begin  from  the  beginning, 
a  company  be  collected,  rehearsed,  dressed,  instilled 
with  the  feeling  that  this  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death  — 
all  for  what  ? —  after  a  little  the  mature  mind  ceases  to 


192        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

respond  to  the  fantasy  of  such  demands.  So  it  should 
reasonably'  be  with  the  scene-making.  If  the  efforts 
are  to  be  such  as  would  almost  suffice  to  build  a  city, 
the  artist,  if  he  has  in  hun  any  touch  of  that  supremely 
artistic  qualit3%  a  sense  of  fitness,  will  rebel.  And  then, 
if  he  must  stick  to  the  job,  for  careful  design  he  will 
substitute  brilliant  sketches,  which  make  for  effect  but 
have  no  substance  behind  them.  Now,  this  may  be 
fine  artistry  of  its  sort;  but  translated  to  craftsmanship, 
to  the  three  dimensions  of  the  theatre,  to  a  stage  peopled 
with  humanity,  it  opens  the  door  to  shoddy,  and  is 
generally  the  Ibeginning  of  debasement.  There  is  then 
a  fitness  to  be  found  in  more  than  the  appearance  of 
simplicity,  and  the  measuring  of  means  by  end  will 
prove  a  positive  artistic  strength. 

And  the  development  of  conventional  staging,  quite 
apart  from  its  particular  dramatic  fitness,  answers  the 
same  purpose.     Just  as  a  standardizing  of 
The  the    measurements    for    doors,    windows, 

salutary  platforms,  steps,  is  a  help  to  the  carpenter, 

influence  ^^  ^^  ^^^  conventionalizing  of  a  scene  to  the 
tional  designer:  his  imagination  is  set  the  freer  by 

staging  the  very  limitations  within  which  it  must 

work.  These  must  vary  very  much  accord- 
ing to  concrete  circumstances,  and  their  proper  extent 
will  always  be  arguable.  A  Greek  play,  for  instance, 
torn  from  a  Greek  theatre,  where  its  convention  of 
staging  was  built,  so  to  speak,  in  very  marble,  is  already 
sorely  at  any  producer's  mercy.  However,  if  Greek 
tragedies  are  to  be  kept  alive  in  the  English  climate 
they  must  submit  to  the  conditions  of  a  now  playhouse. 
It  would  be  best,  of  course,  to  reproduce  tlie  theatre  at 
Athens  or  Syracuse  on  a  suitable  scale,  covered  and 
warmed;  and,  were  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  of  no 
consequence,  London  might  well  be  possessed  of  such 
a  building.  But  the  practical  course  is  to  adapt  our 
modern  theatre  to  the  necessities  of  the  case.    That  is 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  193 

not  difficult.  Minor  disputes  will  arise  —  as  to  how 
far,  for  instance,  in  providing  those  essentials  of  the 
old  theatre  which  are  reflected  in  the  stagecraft  of  the 
plays,  the  "accidentals"  should,  for  the  sake  of  the  so- 
called  atmosphere  they  engender,  be  reproduced,  too.* 
Each  theatre  may  settle  this  in  its  own  way  and  hold 
its  own  way  to  be  the  best.  The  important  thing  is  to 
re-establish  the  framework  of  a  fitting  convention.  To 
have  designers  and  producers  setting  out  upon  one 
revival  after  another  with  no  equipment  but  blank 
minds  and  a  bare  stage  is  the  depth  of  folly.  Greek 
plays  were  written  in  obedience  to  a  definite  conven- 
tion of  acting  and  staging;  therefore  the  acceptance  of 
a  convention  as  germane  to  it  as  the  gulf  between 
Athens  and  our  own  time  allows,  by  producer  and 
designer,  by  actors  and,  most  importantly,  by  the 
audience,  is  a  necessary  part  of  their  performance  and 
enjoyment.  Limitation  this  is  not;  convention  is  law 
to  art,  and  only  within  it  is  one's  power  of  appreciation 
truly  free.  And  the  designer  will  find  that  he  has  amply 
enough  to  do,  working  within  this  accepted  range, 
and  quite  enough  to  ask  of  beholders  without  straying 
beyond  it.  Incidentally,  it  is  roughly  true  that  the 
more  conventional  the  scene  the  greater  value  is  given 
to  the  beauty  and  fine  quality  of  its  costume  and  fur- 
nishing. This  is  a  question  not  of  simplicity,  but  of 
convention  and  its  acceptance;  the  freeing  from  un- 
necessary astonishment  of  the  spectator's  mind  and 
eyes. 

To  Mediaeval  and  Elizabethan  drama  the  same 
principles  will  apply,  and  over  their  application  the 
same  sort  of  disputes  arise.  The  common  quarrel  over 
the  staging  of  Shakespeare  is  a  pretty  one,  and  some- 
thing more  is  involved  in  it  than  like  or  dislike  of 
platform,  stage,  and  illusionist  scenery.  The  argu- 
ments for  and  against  the  adaptability  of  Greek  Trag- 

*  Personally  I  think  they  should  not  be. 


194         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

edy  can  be  used  with  effect  by  either  side.  The  strict 
EKzabethan  should  contend  that  an  open-air  theatre 

and  the  Greek  language  are  the  only  allow- 
The  need  able  means  of  interpretation,  while  the 
for  agree-  advocates  of  the  modern  staging  of  Shakes- 
ment  on  peare  should  be  content  to  see  Euripides 

conven  ion  subjected  to  all  the  tests  of  realism  —  as 
interpreters  sometimes  they  are.  But  it  comes  to  this: 
and  what  degree  of  translation  will  the  plays 

audience         bear  —  much  is  inevitable  —  and  of  what 

degree  of  translation  of  mind  is  the  audience 
capable?  Drag  Euripides  by  force  across  the  centuries, 
strip  him  of  everything  which  is  not  the  common  knowl- 
edge of  a  London  street  corner,  and,  however  tran- 
scendent his  genius,  how  much  of  him  must  we  not 
lose?  The  further  that  we  ourselves  can  go  back  to 
meet  him,  recapturing  —  however  hardly  —  a  knowl- 
edge both  of  his  intention  and  of  what  lay,  besides, 
unconscious  in  his  mind,  the  better  our  footing  will  be. 
Now,  Shakespeare  may  be  rhetorically  not  for  an  age, 
but  for  all  time.  It  may  be  that  his  genius  quite  tran- 
scends the  medium  in  which  it  worked  —  though  surely 
at  one  moment  to  praise  his  stagecraft  and  in  the  next 
to  contend  that  in  the  problem  of  producing  his  plays 
it  may  safely  be  ignored  is  something  more  than  para- 
doxical. It  may  be  true  that  not  the  most  Elizabethan 
playing  will  restore  an  Elizabethan  psychology  to  the 
audience;  though  one  would  have  thought  that  the 
world's  experience  of  these  last  seven  years  would  have 
taught  us  that  —  with  appropriate  stimulus  applied  — 
the  nature  of  man  has  not  changed  so  greatly  with  the 
ages.  Nevertheless,  since  Shakespeare  wrote  as  he 
did  write  and  planned  for  the  theatre  he  knew  —  not, 
in  spite  of  all  argument,  as  he  doubtless  would  have 
done  for  the  theatre  of  these  times  had  he  lived  in  these 
times  —  it  stands  to  something  which  will  pass  for 
reason  that,  as  he  cannot  now  come  to  us,  the  nearer  we 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  195 

can  get  to  him  the  closer  understanding  we  shall  have 
of  him.  It  is  a  question  of  degree,  of  give  and  take, 
and  not,  perhaps,  so  much  of  disquisitioning  upon  the 
psychology  of  audiences  as  of  careful  study  of  his  stage- 
craft —  study  which  can  only  be  carried  on  in  the  actual 
staging  of  the  plays  themselves.  Shakespeare  is  likely 
to  be  the  cornerstone  of  any  representative  theatre  in 
England  as  long  as  the  impulse  of  the  Elizabethan 
age  —  England's  renaissance,  her  gathering  of  strength 
for  the  spring  that  has  landed  her  upon  what  now 
perilous  height!  —  endures.  Therefore  the  problem  is 
of  more  interest  to  us  than  its  parallel  of  Greek  Tragedy 
and  the  Mediaeval  play.  It  is  more  capable,  too,  of 
varying  solutions.  We  are,  at  any  rate,  sufficiently 
near  to  our  Shakespeare  for  the  more  and  less  of  dis- 
tance to  count,  and  for  the  degree  of  proximity  achieved 
to  be  disputable  by  canons  of  taste  as  well  as  reason. 
It  is  a  problem  which  each  representative  theatre  must 
work  out  to  its  own  salvation.  But  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that,  in  the  establishment  of  a  stage  convention, 
not  only  the  fancy  of  the  decorator  but  the  attitude  of 
every  contributor  to  the  production  is  involved,  and 
that  this  cannot  be  arbitrarily  and  constantly  shifted 
from  one  pole  to  another.  Producer,  actors  and  audi- 
ence must  not  be  asked  to  view  "Hamlet"  as  a  study 
in  sixteenth-century  manners  one  day  and  as  a  view  of 
eleventh-century  Denmark,  filled  by  the  rotundities  of 
eighteenth-century  classicism,  the  next.  A  convention 
is  a  treaty  first  between  fellow-interpreters  and  then 
between  them  and  their  public. 

Collaboration  will  be,  in  every  instance,  as  obligatory 
upon  the  workshop  as  upon  any  other  section  of  the 
theatre.  This  book  both  tacitly  and  expressly  rejects 
the  ideal  of  the  theatre  which  sees  everything  centred 
in  the  imagination  and  proceeding  from  the  brain  of 
one  man.  A  good  enough  practical  reason  for  doing 
so  would  be  the  scarcity  of  supply.     If  we  are  to  wait 


196         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

for  each  theatre  till  the  advent  of  an  inspiring  genius 
■ — no,   we   shall   not   wait   a   long   time;  that   is  not 
what    happens.     We    shall,   as    now,   have 
The  many  sham  theatres  in   being  and   one  or 

workshop     ^^^    ^.^^j    ^^^^    ^^    ^^le    clouds.     But    the 

collabora-    better    reason    lies    in    the    sounder    belief 
tion  that   the   theatre   in   its   very   nature   is   a 

co-operative  art,  and  that  its  chief  glory  is  to 
be  so.  For  if  this  sublimated  single  being  must  be  dupli- 
cated into  designer  and  producer,  why  should  he  not 
be  duplicated  into  author  as  well.?  Further,  unless  the 
actors  are  to  be  merely  puppets,  he  should  logically 
assume  the  burden  of  the  acting  besides.  It  is,  indeed, 
noticeable  that  Gordon  Craig  —  true  genius  and  chief 
prophet  in  this  kind,  though,  to  our  great  misfortune, 
retired  in  these  days  to  absolute  supremacy  in  a  theatre 
of  the  clouds  —  has  himself  been  sometimes  driven  to 
this  conclusion  and  has  sought  refuge  in  an  exalting 
of  the  puppet  play.  May  one  not  write  at  the  end  of 
such  a  proposition:  Which  is  absurd.''  We  all  strive 
for  an  absolute  beauty,  an  absolute  perfection  in  our 
work,  to  the  degree  of  our  gift.  And  if,  in  solitude,  we 
never  reach  it  we  may  blame  those  conflicting  elements 
in  ourselves,  the  penalty  and  the  promise  of  our  very 
humanity.  The  more,  then,  should  we  approve  the 
friendly  art  of  the  theatre,  which  in  its  incomplete- 
ness is  a  truer  reflection  of  the  life  it  portrays  than 
in  any  unimpeachable  perfection  of  achievement  it 
could  be. 

Collaboration    admitted,    the    conditions    need    de- 
termining.    Should  the  workshop  form  as  close  a  cor- 
poration as  the  company  of  actors  —  and 
,     ,       closer,  since  its  work  would  be  more  nar- 
organization    rowly  concentrated  —  or  should  it  admit 
the  alien  designer,  even  as  the  i)laywright 
must  be  admitted.''    One  has  little  doubt  that  it  should. 
But  the  workshop  will  first  tend  quite  naturally  to 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  197 

evolve  for  itself  some  such  constitution  as  this.  Its 
head  must  be  established  as  administrator,  teacher, 
and  designer,  too.  He  will  be  responsible  for  the  work- 
ing out  of  the  theatre's  particular  scenic  conventions, 
for  continuity  of  policy,  for  craftsmanship.  This  last 
gathers  great  importance  with  simplicity  of  staging. 
There  is  a  method  of  producing  plays  by  which  actors, 
scenes,  and  furniture  are  so  smudged  up  in  soft  lights 
that  neither  form  nor  colour  can  be  accounted  for.  No 
doubt  this  is  a  method  like  any  other.  Perhaps  it 
is  one  best  suited  to  plays  of  muddled  content.  And  a 
little  more  smudging  with  incidental  music  will  com- 
plete the  characteristic  effect.  Then  there  is  a  more  to 
be  respected  school  of  designers  that  relies  upon  paint 
and  the  quality  of  the  painting  —  no  other.  This 
method,  though,  just  because  of  its  striking  possi- 
bilities, is  but  suited  to  a  certain  kind  of  play.  But 
only  the  craftsman  can  make  simplicity  fine.  For 
Greek  plays,  with  their  rejection  of  scenic  illusion,  and 
upon  the  platform  stage  of  the  Elizabethan  drama 
every  detail  of  workmanship  tells,  and  the  ideal  of  the 
school  that  has  this  condition  of  things  to  deal  with 
is  —  to  put  it  crudely  —  that  you  may  turn  all  the 
lights  full  on  if  you  want  to,  and  not  be  ashamed  to  let 
the  audience  see  everything  just  as  it  is.  Not  that  the 
aim  is  to  destroy  illusion,  but  only  to  transfer  it  to 
the  subliminal  region  of  the  actors'  interpretation  of  the 
play.  Not  that  the  designer  is  after  realism  in  the 
sense  that  he  must  have  his  gold  caskets  of  real  gold  — 
a  matter  of  mere  commercial  interest,  the  bankruptcy 
of  all  imagination  whatever  —  but  so  that  he  may 
bring  his  material  to  the  perfection  which  the  circum- 
stances fit  it  for.  His  appeal  to  the  eye  will  be  both 
intimate  and  candid,  and  in  answering  this  a  new  bond 
may  be  knit  between  spectator  and  spectacle,  and  a  new 
satisfaction  enshrined  in  place  of  the  out-worn  pleasure 
of  illusion. 


198         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

What  the  measure  of  this  craftsmanship  must  be  is  a 
question.    A  good  workshop  will  tend  to  do  more  and 
to  do  better  than  necessity  demands,  for 
J.  '      good   workmen   will    only   be   content   to 

make  things  as  well  as  they  can  make  them. 
Experience  will  answer  the  question,  and  in  each  case 
differently.  But  certainly  the  answer  will  almost  al- 
ways involve  the  accumulation  of  a  store  of  things  that 
are  fine  in  themselves  and  not  to  be  destroyed  or  dis- 
carded. And  apart  from  the  things  made,  the  con- 
ventional scenes  themselves,  and  the  rather  comic 
medley  of  a  theatre  property-room  —  the  banners, 
orders,  caskets,  thrones  —  there  will  be  the  things 
collected,  the  furniture,  carpets,  and  hangings.  No 
reason  at  all  that  it  should  be  a  meaningless,  haphazard 
collection.  There  can  be  a  policy,  and  a  continuity  of 
policy,  in  the  matter. 

It  would  be,  then,  into  a  workshop  so  constituted  that 
the  stranger  designer  would  at  times  be  invited.  Not, 
be  it  clearly  understood,  any  casual  painter 
or  architect,  who  thinks  he  would  like  to 
designer  ^^^^  ^  flutter  in  the  theatre  (the  architect, 
of  the  two,  would,  by  the  way,  have  the 
better  chance  of  making  a  steady  flight).  It  no  more 
follows  that  a  painter  can  design  scenery  than  that  a 
novel  writer  can  write  plays.  But  with  enough  tech- 
nique of  his  own  to  enable  him  to  collaborate  with 
the  theatre  craftsman  he  will  be  welcomed  even  as 
the  playwright  is;  allowed,  too,  the  pre-eminence  of  the 
playwright,  for  the  sake  of  the  imagination  which  other 
and  broader  interests  should  have  kept  fresh.  The 
parallel  is  a  close  one.  As  the  playwright  may  often 
be  —  and  should  always  be  if  possible  —  his  own  pro- 
ducer, so  the  designer  with  full  knowledge  of  the  theatre 
crafts  could  be,  from  beginning  to  end,  responsible  for  the 
carrying  out  of  his  designs.  Needless  to  say,  there  will 
be  no  room  at  all  for  the  man  who  can  but  do  brilliantly 


THE  THEATRE  AS  PLAYHOUSE       199 

on  paper.  One  must  distrust  a  designer  —  if  for  no 
other  reason  —  when  his  drawings  are  attractive  at 
first  sight.  This,  a  truism  in  architecture,  still  needs 
some  emphasis  where  scenery  and  costumes  are  con- 
cerned, if  we  may  judge  not  only  from  some  theatrical 
art  exhibitions,  at  which  the  ecstasies  of  the  amateur 
may  be  excusable,  but  from  the  pious  but  futile  pro- 
fessional attempts  that  are  made  now  and  then  to 
translate  into  actuality  wonderfully  attitudinized  pic- 
tures. But  also,  as  with  the  playwright  —  for  the 
"solidifying"  of  a  production  is  a  lengthy  and  trouble- 
some and  a  highly  technical  process  —  there  should  be 
some  mitigation  for  the  men  to  whom  work  in  the  the- 
atre would  remain  a  very  occasional  business.  To  the 
mastery  of  that  simple  situation  comes  naturally  the 
workshop's  head.  He  can  edit  the  work.  If  the  de- 
signs are  of  costumes  to  fit  into  his  conventional  back- 
grounds to  some  extent  he  must  do  so.  And  this  must 
be  the  final  qualification  for  his  post,  one  akin  to  that 
upon  which  the  play-reader  is  to  base  his  services  to 
the  theatre:  the  tact  of  hospitality. 

It  is  surely  the  most  foolish  of  mistakes  to  suppose 
that  artists  are  not  capable  of  co-operation.  ]\Iuch  of 
their  work,  as  of  much  other  work,  must  be  incubated 
in  solitude,  of  course.  But  this  image  of  an  unrea- 
soning egotist  —  vainglorious,  preposterous  —  was,  one 
might  almost  believe,  a  product  of  nineteenth-century 
fiction,  an  item  in  its  calculated  flattery  of  commercial- 
ism. Or,  where  the  reality  does  exist,  it  may  have 
sprung  from  these  very  conditions,  so  bitterly  hostile 
to  all  art.    Let  it  stand  as  a  living  witness  against  them. 

The  average  artist  among  his  fellows  is  very  like  the 
average  man,  and  a  workshop  is  his  natural  environ- 
ment. Here  is  an  arena  into  which  he  may  cast  his 
idea  for  profit  by  dispute,  and  gain  a  new  —  an  ob- 
jective—  delight  in  its  over-fashioning.  Friction  will 
not  often  be  more  than  wholesomely  warming;  here  is 


200         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

no  audience  to  embitter  a  quarrel.  And  while  imagi- 
nation may  be  solitary  and  absolute,  craftsmanship  is  a 
commonwealth.  A  workshop  might  well  be  the  happiest 
place  in  a  theatre,  for  its  material  is  kindly  and  acqui- 
escent. Moreover,  the  worker  can  go  home  and  leave  it. 
He  is  free  from  the  ever-haunting  self-consciousness  of 
the  actor,  who  sheds  but  his  clothes  in  his  dressing- 
room.* 

Some  time  before  the  scene  designer  proclaimed  him- 
self the  saviour  of  the  drama  the  contriver  of  stage 
mechanism  had  come  to  the  fore.  He 
did  not,  it  is  true,  take  on  the  airs  of  a 
prophet,  but  in  the  sacred  name  of  efficiency  he  cum- 
bered up  the  stages  of  certain  theatres  and  absorbed 
the  energies  of  their  managements,  passionate  to  be  up 
to  date.  But  the  result  of  much  experiment  with  stages 
that  lift  and  lower,  run  back  or  run  off  sideways,  with 
lights  reflected  from  a  colossal  "heaven"  and  electrical 
contrivances  galore,  seems  to  be  the  verdict  that  the 
best  basis  for  any  production  is  a  bare  stage. 

Having  said  so  much  in  condemnation  of  machinery, 
which,  while  pretending  to  help  the  producer,  only 
hinders  him,  it  is  fair  to  qualify  the  statement.  Much 
of  it  was  crammed  into  unsuitably  built  theatres,  some 
of  it  was  put  in  only  by  halves:  and,  at  any  time,  no 
machine  is  better  than  half  a  one.  But  such  a  con- 
trivance, for  instance,  as  the  ordinary  revolving  stage 
is  mainly  a  nuisance.  It  is  cramping  to  a  degree,  drives 
the  scene-designer  into  (literally)  hole-and-corner  in- 
genuities, which  by  their  novelty  are  too  conspicuous 
and  in  their  repetition  (the  bag  of  tricks  is  soon  ex- 

*  There  incidentally  is  presented  a  dilemma.  Shall  the  actor 
escape  it  by  creating  a  graven  image  —  a  subconscious  professional 
self?  No;  for  that  will  not  suffice  him  for  serious  w.ork.  This  is 
every  artist's  problem,  but,  al)()ve  all,  it  is  the  actor's  —  that  artist 
in  self  —  to  develop  such  sanity  in  his  work  that  he  never  needs 
to  cscjape  it.  Or  he  might  keep  a  subconscious  self  to  live  by;  life 
being  unimportant.    Not  a  happy  way  out  of  the  difficulty,  this! 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  201 

hausted)  become  wearisome.  A  drama  may  yet  be 
written  aesthetically  fitted  for  the  revolving  stage,  but 
Shakespeare,  eighteenth-century  comedy,  and  most 
modern  plays  are  grievously  misplaced  on  it.  If 
Shakespeare  does  not  need  the  staging  for  which  his 
work  was  designed  he  certainly  demands  a  forthright- 
ness  and  uniformity  of  action  which  is  not  occasioned 
by  a  twisted,  tricky  background.  It  is  always  the 
method  of  acting  to  be  employed  —  the  producer's 
first  consideration  —  which  should  dictate  the  main 
form  of  the  scene.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
the  scene  will  —  if  that  has  been  first  considered  — 
equally  imprint  itself  upon  the  action  of  the  play,  and 
so  largely  influence  the  very  readings  of  the  actors' 
parts.  The  ordinary  revolving  stage,  too  abundantly 
used  (and  machinery  imposes  itself),  makes  neither  for 
spaciousness  nor  dignity  of  production,  nor  for  sim- 
plicity nor  repose. 

The  whole  question,  however,  of  stage  machinery  is 
involved  in  the  larger  one  of  the  theatre's  plan  and 
purpose.      The   modern    form   of   theatre 
building  marks  but  one  stage  of  the  drama's      The  right 
development.     For  plays  of  the  so-called      auditorium 
realistic  school  of  the  nineteenth  century      ^^^  ^j^g 
little  is  needed  but  a  picture-frame  prosce-      wrong 
nium  and  an  auditorium  made  for  some 
intimacy  of  effect;  and  there  must  be  no  gallery  which 
will  elevate  the  actor's  chin  to  an  angle  of  disadvantage 
in  the  eye  of  the  stalls,  or  exhibit  little  more  than  eye- 
brows and  hair-parting  to  the  patient  gods.    Even  here, 
though,  one  may  protest,  in  passing,  against  the  pattern 
of  the  theatre*  which  ranks  the  seats  in  long  straight 

*  Dictated  in  the  beginning,  I  believe,  by  the  Hobson's  choice 
of  sites  in  New  York,  where  theatres  must  be  built  to  the  most 
economical  pattern,  extra  space  being  measured  off  —  almost  liter- 
ally if  extra  frontage  is  involved  —  in  four-inch  hundred  dollar 
notes. 


202        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

rows,  admirable  for  a  view  of  the  stage  but  —  and  this 
consideration  has  been  characteristically  neglected  in 
a  tune  when  everything  has  been  forgotten  about  the 
drama  except  that  it  is  a  paid  entertaimnent  —  nulli- 
fying any  friendly  relation  in  the  audience  to  each  other. 
One  of  the  results,  accidental  possibly,  of  the  accus- 
tomed horseshoe  formation  was  that  the  spectator 
never  quite  lost  consciousness  of  his  fellows.  The  effect 
could,  no  doubt,  be  overdone.  In  the  smaller  Court 
theatre  at  Munich,  if  you  sit  in  a  side  box,  the  party 
opposite  is  full  in  your  eye,  while  from  the  stage  comes 
but  a  sidelong  contribution  to  the  entertainment. 
There  are  compensations  if  the  opposite  party  is  inter- 
esting and  the  performance  dull.  And  in  many  opera 
houses,  of  course,  the  assumption  is  that  people  sit  in  the 
boxes  as  much  to  be  seen  as  to  see.  But  there  is  more 
to  the  question  than  the  encouragement  of  such  agree- 
able vanity.  The  relations  of  the  spectators  among 
themselves  are  a  part  of  their  united  good  relations  to 
the  play.  One  of  the  tests  of  a  good  performance  is 
the  feeling  of  friendliness  it  creates  among  the  spec- 
tators. 'When  the  curtain  falls  on  the  first  act,  and  a 
total  stranger  turns  round  to  speak  to  you  and  you  re- 
spond without  restraint,  you  may  know  that  the  play 
has  achieved  one  of  its  secondary  —  and  presumably, 
therefore,  has  not  failed  of  its  primary  —  purposes. 
It  may  be  art  of  the  crudest  sort  that  has  this  effect  on 
people,  but  it  cannot  be  poor  art.  And  the  physical 
disposition  of  the  audience  contributes  not  a  little  to  the 
ease  with  which  their  emotions  may  have  play.  Imagine 
an  auditorium  in  which  people  sat  blinkered  like 
horses.  However  excellent  the  performance,  the  whole 
affair  would  be  as  flat  as  if  —  however  excellent  the 
dinner!  —  the  diners  sat  at  a  long  table  all  facing  one 
way.  A  d(ni})l('  question  is  involved:  the  physical  fo- 
cussing of  attention,  and  the  relative  importance  of 
one's  own  concentration  upon  the  play  and  of  being  in 


THE  THEATRE  AS  PLAYHOUSE       203 

touch  with  one's  neighbours.  Were  it  possible  to  sit 
round  the  stage  as  one  sits  at  a  circus,  that  would  be 
equally  wrong.  The  spectators  would  be  dominantly 
in  touch  with  each  other  but  distracted  from  the  play.* 
The  question  is  of  first  importance  in  the  designing  of 
an  auditorium. 

No  playhouse,  however,  such  as  we  have  in  mind  can 
be  built  with  an  eye  to  one  sort  of  drama  only.  It  is 
difficult  to  foresee  the  future,  but  quite 
possible  to  provide  for  the  past  in  this  differine 
matter,  if  one  sets  out  straightway  to  do  it.  require- 
It  is  true  that  no  one  who  has  produced  a  ments  of 
Greek  play  in  a  Greek  theatre  will,  for  its  t^^  dififer- 
own  sake,  ever  want  to  bring  it  indoors  ent  kinds 
again,  though  the  watcher,  shivering  in 
his  fur  coat  under  the  rigours  of  an  English  June 
may  wish  it  there  —  or  further.  But  if  in  any  modern 
theatre  a  Greek  play  must  be  scenically  incongruous, 
while  a  mediaeval  play  in  a  picture-frame  proscenium 
will  be  as  well  placed  as  a  picnic  in  a  drawing-room, 
they  can  at  least  both  be  housed  so  that  no  essential 
quality  of  their  stagecraft  is  warped.  And  though,  it 
might  be  argued,  one  could  not  distract  a  whole  build- 
ing scheme  for  the  sole  sake  of  ^Eschylus  and  the 
author  of  "Everyman,"  there  would  still  be  the  prob- 
lem of  Elizabethan  drama  to  be  solved  —  to  any 
English-speaking  audience  a  very  vital  one.  No  need 
to  argue  in  detail  the  question  between  those  who  are 
for  the  Elizabethan  stage  —  and  that  only  —  and 
those  who  contend  that  Shakespeare,  not  for  an  age 
but  for  all  time,  is  for  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  staging, 
too.  The  main  point  of  difference  is  involved  merely 
in  the  presence  or  absence  of  a  proscenium;  and  upon 

*  Reinliardt's  well-remembered  production  of  "The  Miracle" 
was,  to  my  thinking,  largely  spoilt  by  being  played  under  these 
conditions.  And  his  circus  playhouse  in  Berlin  has  comparable 
drawbacks. 


204  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

it  most  others  hang.  The  questions  of  swiftness  of 
speech,  of  the  treatment  of  the  soliloquy,  of  uninter- 
rupted action,  of  whether  scenery  should  be  realistic 
or  decorative  or  whether  there  should  be  none  at  all, 
have  been  developed  by  the  structural  development  of 
the  theatre  from  the  platform  to  the  picture  stage. 
This,  with  its  relation  to  contemporary  stagecraft, 
reacted  characteristically  upon  the  performance  of  older 
plays.  Not  till  the  breach  is  wide  and  the  accommo- 
dation bridges  are  broken  can  it  be  seen  in  such  a  case 
what  principles  are  involved.  And  now  the  issues 
must  be  fought  out  experimentally,  point  by  point. 
But  the  thrusting  of  the  plays  within  a  proscenium,  or 
the  attempt  to  drag  them  half  out  again  on  to  a  plat- 
form stage  which  has  been  added  as  a  structural  after- 
thought in  defiance  of  lines  of  sight  and  other  such 
practical  considerations,  is  quite  too  empirical  to  be 
enlightening. 

A  theatre  can  undoubtedly  be  so  designed  as  to  pro- 
vide, not  only  the  picture  stage,  but  a  platform  with 
footlights  abolished  and  suitable  entrances  for  Eliza- 
bethan plays:  it  can  provide,  too,  for  the  converting  of 
a  part  of  the  stalls  into  an  arena  for  a  Greek  chorus. 
The  architectural  problem  is  not  an  easy  one  —  but  it 
can  be  solved.  An  effectively  disappearing  proscenium 
should  not  be  hard  to  contrive.  The  trouble  here  has 
always  lain  in  a  lack  of  space  above  and  around  the 
stage.  The  gridiron  should  be  more  than  twice  the 
height  of  the  auditorium  ceiling,  and  the  width  between 
the  fly-rails  more  than  the  auditorium's  practical  width. 
Limitations  of  site  and  of  building  cost  stand  in  the  way 
of  this  cxtensiveness.  One  suspects,  too,  that  architects 
may  have  shrunk  from  llic  eflVct  of  a  great  squarecentral 
tower  in  the  midst  of  the  structure;  though  one  wonders 
why,  as  it  looks  well  enough  in  a  cathedral. 

Machinery  for  the  exy)edilious  making  of  these  con- 
structive changes  should  be  a  i)art  of  the  equipment  of 


THE   THEATRE   AS   PLAYHOUSE  205 

every  playhouse  with  a  comprehensive  programme. 
For  the  rest  one  wants  nothing  self-assertive.  And  in 
command  of  this  department  should  be  a  stage  en- 
gineer,* solely  concerned  with  the  practical  working 
out  and  the  economical  running  of  the  schemes  of  the 
producers  of  plays.  But  the  less  they  are  tempted  to 
dally  with  the  marvels  of  machinery  the  better.  Inno- 
cent, child-like  beings,  beguiled  by  a  new  toy,  they 
always  find  themselves  before  very  long  dancing  to  its 
clackety  tunes. 

Note. — Personally  (in  a  very  limited  experience,  it  is 
true)  I  have  never  seen  a  satisfactory  working  stage. 
The  first  requisite  is  space,  not  an  extravagant  amount 
of  room  to  act  in,  but  ample  space  around  it.  A  normal 
proscenium  opening  of  thirty  feet  or  so  is  ample,  con- 
traction to  twenty -five  is  sometimes  useful,  extension 
to  forty  —  that  is,  effective  abolition  of  the  prosce- 
nium altogether — should  be  considered  a  necessity  for 
Greek  and  Elizabethan  drama;  and  the  stage's  working 
width  should  be  at  least  a  hundred  feet.  Working 
depth  depends,  of  course,  upon  the  line  of  sight  from 
the  theatre's  top  places;  most  architects  exaggerate  its 
value.  With  the  proscenium  in  use  sixty  feet  should  be 
ample.  With  the  proscenium  removed  —  that  is  to  say 
when  there  are  no  effects  of  illusion  to  be  obtained  — 
it  should  be  more  than  enough.  Simple  decoration  and 
acting  do  not  ask,  as  a  rule,  for  unoccupied  distances. 

*  The  stage-manager  whom  he  would  replace  has  become  to 
some  degree  an  anachronism.  He  is  still  supposed  to  be  interested 
in  the  play  itself,  to  watch  the  actors,  rehearse  their  understudies, 
and  to  be  responsible  for  the  artistic  upkeep  of  the  performances 
generally.  But  the  coming  into  fashion  of  the  producer  has  de- 
prived him  of  any  initiative  in  such  matters,  and  nowadays  he  is 
chosen  mainly  for  his  power  of  controlling  the  stage  staff,  his  tech- 
nical knowledge  of  scenery,  and  his  ability  to  keep  accounts.  The 
position  would  be  better  filled  by  a  man  wlio  frankly  disinterested 
himself  in  the  dramatic  side  of  the  business  altogether. 


206         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

Cellar  room  has  its  uses;  for  machinery  for  altering 
the  stage  level  is,  perhaps,  the  most  practical  of  all  in 
this  kind,  and  in  the  construction  of  scenes  it  trebles 
the  value  of  a  turntable.  This,  indeed,  is  of  little  general 
use  alone,  and  of  no  good  use  at  all  unless  it  can  be 
placed  so  far  back  that  its  diameter  can  considerably 
exceed  the  normal  width  of  the  proscenium;  and  then 

—  obviously  —  no  complete  scene  can  be  set  upon  it. 
Lighting  is  too  complicated  a  matter  to  discuss  here; 
it  is  the  Achilles'  heel  of  most  stage  equipment.  In- 
cidentally, though,  every  theatre  could  —  and  should 

—  be  so  designed  that  plays  can  be  performed  in  day- 
light. 


Chapter  V 
The  Production  of  a  Play 

WE  come  to   the   kernel   of   the   whole   matter. 
And   the   first   thing   to   note   is   that   condi- 
tions of  play  production  in  any 
such  theatre  as  we  are  envisaging  bear  no       ^^^  plays 

relation  at  all   to   the  methods  that  are       ,,   ^ 

thrown  on 

thrust  upon  the  managers  and  producers  ^he  stage 
in  money-making  tlieatres  to-day.  For 
the  simple  sake  of  the  contrast,  however,  it  may  be 
well  first  to  envisage  these.  The  money-making  (and 
losing)  manager  finds  himself,  at  best,  with  a  building 
he  can  call  his  own  and  a  few  constant  collaborators. 
The  rest  —  play,  company,  scenery,  dresses  —  are 
brought  together  to  be  welded  to  a  whole  for  the  occa- 
sion only;  the  entity  will  be  dissolved  and  its  material 
scattered  when  the  occasion  is  over.  For  good  or  ill, 
then,  the  manager  must  work  upon  very  constricted 
lines.  He  has,  it  is  true,  in  theory  the  widest  possible 
choice  of  a  cast  for  the  play.  Anybody  in  the  world 
that's  available  may  be  had  —  at  a  price.  But  in  prac- 
tice —  competition  plucking  the  first  fruits  of  talent  — 
the  freedom  to  choose  among  a  swelling  crowd  of 
people  with  whose  work  you  cannot  be  very  intimate 
and  to  whose  methods  of  work  you  are  inevitably 
more  or  less  of  a  stranger,  is  a  doubtful  blessing.  It 
means  much  to  the  producer  to  be  familiar  with  the  ways 
of  an  actor  he  is  to  direct;  it  will  often  save  him  needless 
anxiety,  friction,  false  starts,  wasted  time;  it  will  mean 
even  more  to  the  actor  himself,  who  is  apt  to  be  as  ner- 
vous as  a  new  found  cat  at  rehearsal  —  if  he  is  not  it  is 
no  good  sign.  So,  for  all  their  freedom  of  choice,  man- 
agers tend  to  select  people  they  have  worked  with 
before.  The  London  stage  in  particular  is  accused  from 
time  to  time,  of  being  a  close  corporation.    It  is.    And 


208        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

it  is  only  broken  up  by  the  advent  of  new  managers  who 
bring  some  knowledge  of  new  actors  with  them.  The 
system  has,  indeed,  many  of  the  limitations  of  the  old 
stock  days  and  none  of  their  advantages. 

But  the  company  collected  will  still  be,  at  best,  a 
scratch  company.  For,  though  the  manager  may  know 
them,  though  they  may  in  the  round  of 
,  their  work  have  met  each  other  more  or 
company  ^^^^  often,  they  certainly  do  not  come  to- 
gether now  with  any  corporate  sense;  they 
are,  at  best,  artistic  acquaintances.  Observe,  then, 
that  the  foundation  of  a  good  performance,  which  is 
just  this  corporate  sense,  has  to  be  laid  at  the  very  same 
time  that  the  superstructure  —  the  work  upon  the  play 
itself  —  is  being  built.  A  manifest  impossibility.  The 
acting  of  the  average  play  to-day  is  all  superstructure 
—  and  mostly  f agade !  If  it  gives  one  no  sense  of  sta- 
bility of  intention,  of  there  being  in  the  whole  thing 
any  abiding  worth  of  idea  (for  though  the  play's  execu- 
tion cannot  abide,  this  may),  it  is  mainly  because  the 
performance  is  not  built  upon  this  deeper  subconscious] 
understanding  among  its  actors.* 

Moreover,   since  the  company  have  been  brought 
together  for  this  one  production  only  no  time  must 
be  lost.     Rehearsals  must  be  hurried  on 
hun-'  d  ^^^^  ^^  ^^^'    ^^  pause  for  reflection  or 

rehearsals  ^^  correct  a  mistake  is  a  costly  business. 
If  the  production  is  a  very  simple  one,  if 
no  demands  are  being  made  on  the  actors  but  to  repeat, 
with  a  few  variations,  the  physical  and  emotional  pos- 
turings  to  whicli  they  and  their  audience  are  accus- 

*  If  artistic  worth  were  calctilahle  in  pcrcenta<i;es  one  miplit 
estimate  a  .50  percent,  increase  by  the  cnidcst,  most  hapliazanl  cul- 
tivation of  this  corporate  power;  and  tliis  would  in  its  turn  add 
another  50  per  cent,  to  the  wortli  of  the  indivichial  actor.  But 
that  is  chcapjack  estimation.  Due  ( iillivation  makes  a  difference 
which  amounts  almost  to  an  organic  change. 


THE    PRODUCTION    OF   A    PLAY  209 

tomed,  some  success  may  emerge.  But  the  best  that 
can  be  expected  from  such  a  preparation  is  a  general 
hard  competence  of  execution  when  the  way  is  plain, 
and,  at  any  complexly  difficult  moment,  either  a  help- 
less clinging  together  for  safety  or  a  plunge  into  bus- 
tling bravado.  For  the  rest,  the  individual  actors  and 
actresses  will  take  care  to  rouse  what  delight  they  can 
by  the  exercise  of  their  personal  charm;  exercising  it, 
though,  as  often  as  not  directly  upon  the  audience 
rather  than  primarily  upon  the  play.  They  have  their 
excuse.  To  surrender  this  personal  power  to  whatever 
unity  of  effect  can  be  gained  in  three  weeks'  work  or 
so  among  a  strange  company  might  be  to  lose  it  alto- 
gether, and  to  get  nothing  in  exchange  —  so  thinks  the 
theatre- wise  actor;  therefore,  while  rehearsals  go  for- 
ward he  holds  it  carefully  in  reserve.  There  will  be 
some  genuine  co-operation  in  the  duologues,  no  doubt. 
It  is  necessary,  and  not  very  difficult,  to  work  up  a  sort 
of  mutual  responsiveness  in  these;  for  the  rest,  each  for 
himself  and  the  critics  take  the  hindmost!  But  this 
is  not  to  vivify  a  play.  It  is  at  the  best  but  a  setting 
up  of  its  bare  bones,  and  we  can  be  thankful  if  they  are 
straightly  articulated.  External  elegance  may  be  ex- 
hibited, and  while  our  eyes  and  ears  are  sufficiently 
entranced  our  minds  may  seize  detachedly  upon  the 
bare  meanings  of  the  author's  text.  But  no  wonder  we 
rise  in  aesthetic  rebellion  against  the  theatre.  For  of 
that  fine  interplay  of  visualized  character,  of  (shifting 
the  metaphor)  the  living  tapestry  of  pictured  thought 
and  emotion  into  which  the  stuff  of  a  play  can  be 
woven  in  its  acting,  what  have  we  seen.?  Hardly  a 
beginning.  Nor  by  any  such  means  could  we  hope  for 
it.  Yet  so  used  are  we  to  the  shackles  of  the  present 
system  that  in  all  the  advocacy  of  the  reform  of  the 
theatre  —  from  the  training  of  actors  to  the  capturing 
of  audiences  —  one  finds  no  apparent  realization  that 
(the  proper  production   of  plays   being,   indeed,   the 


210         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

mainspring  of  the  whole  matter)  this  is  not  a  way  by 
which  any  homogeneous  work  of  art  can  be  produced 
at  all.  We  need  to  think  the  whole  matter  out  again 
from  the  beginning. 

One  word  of  warning,  however.     The   medium  we 
work  in  is  human,  so  there  can  never  be  a  perfect  pro- 
duction, nor  is  there  such  a  thing  as  an 
The  ideal  cast;  nor  should  we  even  try  by  cir- 

y^h^^*^°^  cumstantial  safeguards  to  make  our  play's 
human  performance  fool  proof.     In   any   theatre 

medium  there   will   arise,   when   certain   plays   are 

under  consideration,  the  practical  question : 
can  we  command  an  inspiring  or  even  an  adequate  Lear 
or  Qlldipus,  Peer  Gynt,  Cyrano  or  Undershaft?  If  we 
for  the  time  being  cannot  it  may  be  more  sensible  to 
hang  up  those  plays.  But,  again,  as  what  we  look  for  is 
interpretation,  not  realization,  so  with  most  plays  a 
faithful  and  lively  interpretation  of  the  whole  will 
always  add  more  in  value  than  we  shall  lose  from  indi- 
vidual inability  to  do  full  justice  physically  and  emo- 
tionally to  one  or  two  parts.  The  unity  of  our  inter- 
pretation will  be  the  best  measure  of  our  approach  — 
not  to  perfection,  about  which  empty  word  and  teasing 
thought  we  should  not  even  bother  ourselves  —  but  to 
self-contained  vitality. 

The  beginnings  of  a  play's  preparation  by  the  com- 
pany differ  so  little  in  theory  from  its  purely  educational 
use  by  students,  as  this  has  been  outlined  in  "The 
Theatre  as  School,"  that  we  may  avoid  recapitulation 
here.  In  practice,  no  doubt,  the  company  will  get  to 
the  gist  of  their  work  far  more  expeditiously.  One  only 
hopes  they  will  not  be  too  expeditious;  that  the  wheels, 
so  to  speak,  of  their  well-oiled  and  well-balanced  artis- 
tic faculties  will  grip  the  road.  They  will  make,  too, 
a  rather  different  use  of  these  earlier  stages  when 
plays  are  in  hand  that  call  for  certain  technical  bril- 
liancies of  accomplishment. 


THE    PRODUCTION    OF   A    PLAY  211 

Take,  for  instance,  "A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream." 
This  is  less  a  play,  in  the  sense  that  we  call  "Rosmers- 
holm"  a  play,  than  a  musical  symphony. 
The  characterization  will  not  repay  very    Setting 
prolonged  analysis.    It  can  best  be  vivified    *°  ^°^^ . 
and  elaborated  by  the  contrasting  to  eye    Jjid^ummer 
and  ear  of  individual  with  individual  and    Night's 
group  with  group.     Then  the  passing  and    Dream  " 
repassing  from  the  lyric  to  the  dramatic 
mood  has  to  be  carefully  judged  and  provided  for.    To 
hold  an  audience  to  the  end  entranced  with  the  play's 
beauty  one  depends  much  upon  the  right  changing  of 
tune  and  time,  and  the  shifting  of  key  from  scene  to 
scene  and  from  speech  to  speech.    From  the  time,  for 
instance,  when  Puck's  and  Oberon's  bungling  with  the 
love  juice  begins  to  take  effect  the  action  quickens  and 
becomes  more  and  more  confused,  the  changes  of  tune 
and  time  come  more  frequently,  more  and  more  sud- 
denly.    But  the  greater  the  effect  of  speed  that  you 
want  the  less  haste  you  must  make  over  it,  the  more 
the  effect  of  confusion  the  clearer  cut  must  your  changes 
be.    And  all  the  time  it  must  all  be  delightful  to  listen 
to,  musical,  with  each  change  in  a  definite  and  purpose- 
ful relation  to  what  went  before,  to  what  will  come 
after. 

Now,  once  you  get  to  rehearsing  the  action  physi- 
cally and  your  actors  are  occupied  with  their  move- 
ments   and    business  —  moreover,    once    off 
the    stage   for    a    moment    or    two,   out    of    How- 
touch,  as  actually  out  of  sight  and  hearing.    Physical 
with  what  they  have  left  going  on  there  —    brings 
it  is  impossible  for  them  to  build  up  their    study  to  a 
parts  in  such  a  scheme  with  a  continuously    standstill 
abiding  sense  of   the  value  of    the   whole, 
even  if  this  has  been  arbitrarily  formulated  by  the 
producer,  annotated  for  the  actor  line  by  line  and  im- 
pressed upon  him  note  by  note.     Besides,  one  wants 


212         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

no  such  arbitrary  method;  a  producer  even  now  re- 
sorts to  it  only  in  desperation.  To  suggest,  to  criticize, 
to  co-ordinate  —  that  should  be  the  limit  of  his  function. 
The  symphonic  effect  must  be  one  made  by  the  blend- 
ing of  the  actors'  natural  voices  and  by  the  contrasts 
that  spring  from  the  conflicting  emotions  which  their 
mutual  study  of  the  parts  spontaneously  engenders. 
Even  over  things  that  seem  to  need  the  exactitude  of 
orchestration  the  scheme  of  the  play's  performance 
must  still,  as  far  as  possible,  grow  healthily  and  natu- 
rally into  being,  or  the  diversity  of  the  various  actors 
will  not  become  a  unity  without  loss  of  their  individual 
force.  And  we  must  never  forget  that  to  put  a  play 
into  action  on  the  stage  is  to  pour  it  into  its  mould; 
once  there  it  tends  very  quickly  to  set.  If  the  perform- 
ance of  such  plays  as  these  is  not  to  become  mere 
repetition  of  ritual  they  must  be  kept  fluid  and  experi- 
mental in  their  preparation  till  appearance  and  purpose 
both,  fineness  and  sincerity  united,  can  be  relied  upon 
for  the  tempering. 

But  in  nearly  all  plays  (except,  of  course,  those  of 
pure  mime)  the  physical  action  is  extraordinarily  un- 
important, the  mental  and  the  emotional  action  all  in 
all.  Delay,  then,  in  entering  the  physical  phase  should 
not  trouble  the  experienced  actor.  He  has  no  business 
to  be  agitating  his  mind  at  rehearsals  (much  less  at  a 
performance)  over  physical  movements,  unless  they 
are  such  matters  of  gymnastic  as  fighting,  dancing,  or 
the  rough  and  tumble  of  farce.  His  training  should  so 
have  equipped  him  that  all  such  things  come  without 
thought;  come  one  way  or  another,  with  one  way  as 
right  as  the  other.  His  thought  he  needs  to  match  with 
the  play's  thought,  and  it  is  not  so  often  he'll  have  any 
to  spare.* 

*  For  all  that,  though,  I  have  known  an  experienced  aetor 
worry  himself  almost  to  death  about  how  he  should  get  out  of  a  stage 
room  when,  after  all,  the  only  way  was  through  the  door. 


THE    PRODUCTION    OF   A    PLAY  213 

But  passing  the  period  of  argument  and  criticism, 
which  are  common  to  actor  and  student  both,  we  come 
to  the  point  where  their  paths  part  com- 
pany —  the   student   sustaining  his   criti-  , 
cism,  the  actor  pledged  now  to  the  mys-     ^oces"b^ 
terious  process  by  which  he  identifies  him-     which  the 
self  with  the  character  he  is  to  play.*     A     actor 
lot  of  rather  irritating  nonsense  is  talked     identifies 
about   this.      Amateurs   and   very   young        -^^t- 
actors  tell  you  solemnly  at  rehearsals  that         ^.^ 
all  will  be  well  (all  being  at  the  time  usually 
very  ill)  once  they  get  into  the  skin  of  their  parts. 
The  hardened  old  actor  suppresses  (or  does  not  sup- 
press) his  contempt,  because  he  knows  very  well  that 
this  must  happen  if  it  will  happen,  that  effort  does 
not  avail,  that  even  by  prayer  and  fasting  it  may  not 
come;  on  the  other  hand,  that  rehearsal  time  is  too 
valuable  to  be  spent  standing  mentally  idle  in  expecta- 
tion of  the  miracle.    Still,  it  is  a  miracle  that  yields,  if 
not  to  contiiving,  partly,  at  least,  to  explanation. 

The  phrase  "to  create  a  part"  is  embedded  in  kin- 
dred nonsense,  but  in  it  there  is  sense,  too.  That  the 
actor  can  add  something  all  his  own  to  the  dramatic 
material  he  is  given  no  one  would  deny.  And  if  one 
must  be  disputing  his  claim  to  be  called  creative  and 
original,  let  the  dramatist  at  least  remember  that  he, 
too,  does  but  capture,  to  inform  with  something  of  his 
own  life  and  pass  forth  again  renewed  a  brain-full  of 
the  ideas  and  passions  which  are  the  common  posses- 
sion of  — ■  which  so  possess  —  mankind.  We  are,  indeed, 
interpreters   all.     Creation   is  not  man's  prerogative. 

This  admitted,  the  relation  between  the  dramatist's 
way  of  work  and  the  actor's  will  be  worth  investigating. 
An  essential  quality  of  any  work  of  art  is  its  homo- 
geneity. For  a  staged  play,  then,  to  make  good  its 
claim  to  be  one  it  would  seem  to  follow  that  the  actors 

*  See  also  p.  229  et  seq. 


214  THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

must  continue  what  the  dramatist  has  begun  by  meth- 
ods as  nearly  related  to  his  in  understanding  and  inten- 
tion as  the  circumstances  allow.  And  it  is  probably 
true  that  the  staged  play  is  a  satisfying  work  of  art  to 
the  very  degree  that  this  homogeneity  exists.  We  have 
insisted  time  and  again  upon  the  secondary  importance 
of  the  physical  side  of  the  play's  interpretation,  for  all 
that  in  the  end  it  seems  to  dominate  the  entire  business, 
to  the  exclusion  even,  in  innocent  eyes,  of  the  drama- 
tist's own  share.  It  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  say 
that  it  stands  for  no  more  than  does  the  pen,  ink,  and 
paper  by  which  the  play  was  recorded,  but  quite  just 
to  compare  it  to  the  technical  knowledge  of  play-making 
that  the  dramatist  has  come  to  exercise  almost  uncon- 
sciously. And  it  is  likely  that  the  near  relation  of 
method,  which  we  want  to  establish,  does  lie  in  this 
mysterious  preliminary  process  by  which  the  actor 
"gets  into  the  skin  of  his  part":  for,  indeed,  all  else 
that  he  does  in  performing  it  can  be  related  to  mere 
technique  of  expression.  It  is  tliis  m,ystery,  then,  that 
we  must  investigate  and  attempt  to  explain. 

To  begin  with,  how  does  the  dramatist  work?    He 
may  get  his  play  on  paper  quickly  or  slowly,  but  the 

stuff  in  it  is  the  gradual,  perhaps  the  casual. 
The  accretion  of  thoughts  and  feelings,  formed 

^^^^**^*  ^  ^^^"  before  and  now  framed  in  words,  or 
which  the  firranged  into  action,  for  the  first  time, 
actor  must  How  much  of  this  process  is  conscious,  and 
follow  how  much    unconscious    or    subconscious, 

he  probably  could  not  tell  j-ou.  If  we 
say  that  the  experiences  are  unconsciously  or  subcon- 
sciously selected  and  consciously  shaped  we  may  not 
be  far  wrong.  Wherein  docs  the  actor's  method  follow 
this?  Certainly  no  sucli  process  is  to  be  found  in  the 
stufHng  of  Ills  memory  with  words,  and  tlio  whipping  up 
and  out  of  whatever  emotions  bis  repel  i  I  ion  of  them 
hapi)ens  to  suggest  during  the  half-drill,  half-scramble 


THE   PRODUCTION    OF   A    PLAY  215 

jof  the  three  or  four  weeks'  rehearsing,  while  he  fits 
himself  as  best  he  can  —  his  corners  into  all  the  other 
arbitrary  corners  —  of  that  strange  shifting  Chinese 
puzzle  which  is  called  to-day  an  efficient  and  business- 
like production.  As  a  matter  of  fact  no  actor  worth  his 
salt  relies  upon  this  sort  of  preparation;  he  has  other 
resources  within  himself.  If  he  worked,  as  does  the 
dramatist,  in  solitude,  if  he  too  were  a  fovmtain-head, 
his  methods  would  be  of  only  theoretical  interest,  our 
care  but  for  the  result.  But  his  job  is  derivative  and 
co-operative  both.  Therefore  we  must  know  the  rules 
if  rules  there  are.* 

*  That  this  creative  collaboration  among  actors  and  between  them 
and  the  dramatist  can  be  brought  to  a  high  pitch  we  can  have  evi- 
dence by  comparing  performances  of  a  play  that  differ,  not  in 
brilliance  of  execution,  but  absolutely  in  the  meaning  extracted  from 
the  play  and  in  the  observable  addition  of  dramatic  values.  I  have 
seen  a  performance  of  Tchekov's  "  Cherry  Orchard  "  in  Moscow,  and 
to  read  the  play  afterwards  was  like  reading  the  libretto  of  an  opera 
—  missing  the  music.  Great  credit  to  the  actors;  no  discredit  to 
Tchekov.  For  —  and  this  is  what  the  undraviatic  writer  so  fails 
to  understand,  though  in  Tchekov  he  may  find  a  salient  example  — 
with  the  dramatist  the  words  on  paper  are  but  the  seeds  of  the 
play.  How  be  sure,  as  he  writes,  as  he  plants  them,  that  each  seed 
will  be  fertile?  Well,  that  is  the  secret  of  his  craft.  How  to  culti- 
vate and  raise  the  crop?  That  is  the  secret  of  the  actor's  art.  There 
is  demanded,  no  doubt,  something  more  than  acting,  if  by  acting 
one  only  means  the  accomplishment,  the  graces,  or  the  sound  and 
fury  of  the  stage.  For  these  externals  of  the  business  may  spring 
from  nothing  purposeful,  be  independent  of  any  dramatic  meaning, 
and  then,  for  all  their  charm  and  excitement,  they  come  to  nothing 
in  the  end.  It  is  only  when  they  are  the  showing  of  a  body  of  living 
thought  and  of  living  feeling,  are  in  themselves  an  interpretation  of 
life  itself,  when,  in  fact,  they  acquire  further  purpose,  that  they  rank 
as  histrionic  art.  That  there  are  rules  for  so  incorporating  them  in 
this  creative  process  of  collaboration  we  may  learn  from  the  Art 
Theatre  in  Moscow,  where  they  have  to  some  extent  elaborated 
them,  though  without  pretence  at  finality,  only  for  the  convenience 
of  mutual  understanding.  Much  tliat  follows,  indeed,  was  suggested 
to  me  by  my  memory  of  a  talk  with  Stanislawsky.  And  I  have,  by 
the  way,  seen  a  p)erformance  of  "The  Cherry  Orchard"  elsewhere. 


216        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

We  must  consider  certain  constituents  of  the  prob- 
lem.   With  but  a  three  hours'  traffic  in  which  to  ma- 
.  noeuvre  all  the  material  of  a  play,  the  long- 

and  conflict  ^^^  P^^^  ^^^  ^^^  appear  on  the  stage  for 
a  comparatively  few  informing  and  effec- 
tive passages.  To  find  the  inferential  knowledge  of  it 
that  he  needs  the  actor  must  search,  so  to  speak,  be- 
hind the  scenes,  before  the  rise  of  the  curtain  and  even 
after  its  fall.  This  is  a  commonplace;  and  all  actors 
who  can  be  said  to  study  their  parts  at  all,  not  merely 
to  learn  them,  do,  instinctively  if  not  deliberately, 
work  in  this  way.  But  unless  they  do  so  in  concert  with 
their  fellows  they  really  more  often  harm  the  rest  of 
the  play  than  help  the  whole.  For  an  isolated  per- 
formance, of  however  great  interest,  —  if  the  rest  of  the 
acting  is  sagging,  vague,  helpless,  unattached,  or  per- 
versely at  cross  purposes,  —  must  distort  the  play's 
purpose.  No  matter  if  the  one  seems  to  be  right  and 
all  the  others  wrong.  Nothing  is  right  unless  the 
thing  as  a  whole  is  right.  A  play  is  founded  upon  con- 
flict; the  dramatist,  to  get  the  thing  going  at  all,  must 
bring  his  characters  into  collision,  among  themselves 
or  with  fate  or  circumstances.  lie  must  keep  them  all 
in  an  equally  effective  fighting  trim;  if  he  betrays  one 
of  them,  denies  him  his  best  chance  in  argument  or 
action,  for  all  that  it  may  open  an  easy  way  out  of  a 
difficulty,  end  a  scene  quickly,  bring  a  curtain  down 
with  effect,  the  fabric  will  be  weakened,  the  pLay's 
action  may  be  dislocated  altogether.  It  seems  obvious, 
therefore,  that  the  play's  interpretation  must  be 
founded  upon  corporate  study  by  the  actors,  which 
should  begin  as  an  argumentative  counterpart  of  this 
struggle  and  develop  through  the  assumption  of  per- 
sonality into  the  desired  unity  with  the  play  itself. 
We  have  outlined  the  argumentative  process  else- 
where. Let  ws  now  consider  how  the  unity  is  to  be 
achieved. 


THE   PRODUCTION    OF   A   PLAY  217 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  very  subsidiary  matter  — 
which  now  bulks  so  largely  —  of  learning  the  words 
of  the  play  would  be  swamped  in  the  proc- 
ess of  argument.  Words  should  never  be  Never 
learnt,  for  the  result  —  as  with  action,  if  ^ords  to 
the  play  is  brought  to  that  prematurely  —  memory 
is  that  they  harden  in  the  minds  as  actu- 
alities when  they  should  merely  come  to  it  as  symbols. 
All  solitary  study  whatever  is  (once  again)  to  be  dep- 
recated. For  to  study  the  play,  apart  from  studying 
your  fellow-actors  in  the  play,  is  to  prefer  dry  bones  to 
flesh  and  blood.  There  is  much  to  be  said  for  the 
method  of  the  seventeenth-century  music-teacher,  who 
locked  up  the  instrument  upon  his  departure  for  fear 
that  his  pupil  might  j)ractise.  Actors  might  well  leave 
their  books  behind  them  on  the  table.  It  is  in  the 
untroubled  intervals  between  meetings  that  ideas  may 
make  good  growth  and  opposing  points  of  view  tend 
to  reconciliation.  That  sort  of  solitary  study  by  which, 
so  to  speak,  with  your  mind  quiescent,  the  matter  in 
hand  seems  to  study  you  is  profitable  enough.  It  is 
even,  for  most  memories,  the  easiest  way  of  assimi- 
lating the  dialogue.  A  sensitive  mind  rebels  against 
nothing  so  much  as  getting  words  by  rote. 

And  one  hopes  that  even  the  most  expert  actors 
would  not  come  to  argue  their  way  very  slickly  through 
this  preliminary  period.     No  play  should 
move  in  an  efficient  straight  line  between      ^^® 
first  rehearsal  and  performance.    This  time      IdentiSa- 
of  survey  and  discovery  is  the  time,  too,      ^^^^  again 
when  the  first  tendons  are  being  formed 
which  will  come  to  unite  the  actor's  personality  with 
the  crescent  figure  of  the  character  itself.    Here  is  the 
mystery;  the  gestation  of  this  new  being  that  is  not 
the  actor's  consistent  self  though  partaking  of  it;  that 
is  not  the  character  worn  as  a  disguise;  individual,  but 
with  no  absolute  existence  at  all,  a  relative  being  only. 


218         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

and  now  related  alike  to  the  actor  as  to  the  play.  It 
will  be  slow  in  coming  to  birth:  the  more  unconscious 
the  process  the  better,  for  it  does  not  work  alike  with 
everyone,  never  at  the  same  pace,  never  to  the  same 
measure.  Wherefore  the  producer  may  discover  that 
to  rally  his  team  and  to  save  them  from  a  premature 
awareness  of  themselves  and  each  other,  it  may  be  well 
once  or  twice  to  move  from  the  table  to  the  stage  and 
engage  in  the  business  of  a  scene  or  two.  This  exercise 
should  not  last  too  long,  nor  should  the  scenes  that  are 
tried  follow  too  much  in  sequence;  for,  above  all  things, 
the  physical  action  of  the  play  must  not  be  defined 
while  the  thought  and  feeling  that  should  prompt  it 
are  still  unsure.  But  the  shock  of  the  change  will  be 
refreshing.  It  will  check  the  too  easy  growth  of  an 
agreement,  the  creation  of  a  unity  of  purpose  based 
only  upon  words,  whether  they  be  the  play's  or  the 
actor's  arguments  round  and  about  the  play.  Quite 
literally  the  company  should  be  allowed  to  feel  their 
feet  in  the  play,  to  stamp  up  and  down  and  restore 
the  circulation  which  too  much  talk  may  have  slackened. 
Having  got  thus  far  by  the  aid  of  two  minor  nega- 
tives, let  us  lay  down  a  major  one.  The  production 
itself  must  never  be  shaped  before  its  nat- 
mus't'be  """^  iiral  form  has  declared  itself.  By  shaping 
born  and  ^^^  '^^^  ^^  understand,  of  course,  not  only 

not  made  ^^^^  physical  action  of  the  scenes,  but  their 
mental  and  emotional  action  as  well  — 
everything,  indeed,  that  could  be  regulated,  were  our 
play  an  orchestral  symphony,  by  time  signatures,  met- 
ronome markings,  sforzandi,  rallentandi,  and  the  rest, 
even  by  the  l)eat  of  the  conductor.  It  is  tcm])ting  to 
compare  conductor  and  producer,  but  one  must  do  so 
mainly  to  remark  that  tlieir  powers,  if  not  their  fimc- 
tions,  are  very  different.  To  wield  a  baton  at  rehears- 
als only,  and  even  then  to  have  neither  terms  nor 
instruments  of  precision  for  explanation  or  response  — 


THE   PRODUCTION   OF   A   PLAY  219 

the  limitation  is  severe.  It  is  better  to  remember  that 
compared  to  music  —  and  to  a  far  greater  degree  in 
comparison  with  painting,  sculpture,  and  poetry  —  act- 
ing is  hardly  capable  of  verbal  definition.  For  by  ad- 
mitting the  weakness,  by  abjuring  fixation  and  finality, 
one  can  the  better  profit  by  the  compensating  strength, 
the  ever  fresh  vitality  of  the  purely  human  medium; 
and  so  the  art  will  gain,  not  lose.  Some  fixity,  however, 
there  must  be,  for  the  practical  reason,  if  for  no  other, 
that  co-operation  would  be  impossible  without  it.  But 
there  is  the  sesthetic  reason  too,  and  the  theatre's 
problem  is  concisely  this:  how  to  attain  enough  defini- 
tion of  form  and  unity  of  intent  for  the  staged  play  to 
rank  as  a  homogeneous  work  of  art  and  yet  preserve 
that  freedom  of  action  which  the  virtue  of  the  human 
medium  demands. 

Nothing  is  easier  than  to  plan  out  a  production  in 
elaborate  mechanical  perfection,  to  chalk  the  stage 
with  patterns  for  the  actors  to  run  upon,  to  have  the 
dialogue  sung  through  with  a  certain  precision  of  pitch, 
tone,  and  pace,  to  bring  the  whole  business  to  the  like- 
ness of  a  ballet.  But  nothing  will  be  less  like  a  play  as 
a  play  should  be.  Here,  too,  it  is  the  letter  that  kill- 
eth  and  only  the  spirit  that  giveth  life.  Even  when 
such  a  poetical  symphony  as  "A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream"  demands  for  its  interpretation  a  rhythm  of 
speech  matched  by  rhythm  of  movement  —  individual, 
concerted,  contrasted  — -  which  can  only  be  brought  by 
skilful  hard  practice  to  the  point  where  it  will  defy 
forgetfulness,  all  this  must  still  be  taken  the  step  fur- 
ther to  the  point  where  its  cumbering  recollection  is 
defied,  too.  Rehearsals,  be  it  noted,  have  always  this 
main  object  of  enabling  an  actor  to  forget  both  himself 
and  them  in  the  performance. 

But  preparation  having  been  brought  by  one  means 
and  another  to  the  stage  when  the  play  —  now  a  grown, 
or  half-grown,  but  still  unshaped  combination  of  the 


220        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

work  of  dramatist,  producer,  actors  —  has  acquired 
life  enough  to  be  about  to  go  forward  by  its  own  mo- 
mentum our  positive  rules  (if  they  are  discoverable) 
must  begin  to  apply. 

We  must  now  divide  the  action   (using  the  word 
comprehensively)    into   two   categories.     To   the  first 
will  belong  everything  that  can  be  con- 
The  two  sidered  a  part  of  the  main  structure  of 

categories  ^j^g  pj^^y  (again  using  the  word  compre- 
actionf^he  ^^^nsively  to  express  the  play,  not  as  the 
conscious  dramatist  left  it,  but  as  it  has  been  so  far 
action  brought  to  fuller  being).     And  everything 

so  included  must  be  capable  of  clear  defi- 
nition: its  execution  must  not  vary,  it  must  rani-;:  for 
constancy  with  the  dialogue  itself.  It  is  obvious,  for 
instance,  that  the  characters  must  come  on  and  leave 
the  stage  at  particular  moments  in  particular  ways; 
we  may  take  it  for  granted,  too,  not  only  that  at 
certain  fixed  times  in  fixed  places  certain  things 
must  be  done,  but  done  alwaj^s  with  the  same 
emphasis  and  intention.  This  is  common  form.  And 
thus  far  (the  inconstancy  of  its  hmnan  medium  al- 
ways allowed  for)  the  drama  moves  in  line  with  the 
more  static  arts.  Into  this  first  category,  then,  will 
fall  all  ceremonial  —  the  whole  movement,  for  instance, 
of  such  a  play  as  the  "Agamemnon."  It  will  also  hold 
the  broad  relation  in  tone  and  time  between  act  and 
act,  between  scene  and  scene,  and  the  emotional,  no 
less  than  the  physical,  structure  of  the  action  of  each 
scene,  its  muscular  system,  so  to  speak,  as  apart  from 
its  integument,  blootl  and  nerves.  We  should  be  right 
to  rule  into  this  category  any  features  of  the  play's 
interpretation  which  we  hold  must  be  common  to  every 
production  of  it.  We  might  well  include,  too,  all  fea- 
tures which,  peculiar  to  this  one,  called  for  and  were 
capable  of  any  definition  which  could  be  genuinely 
agreed  upon  by  the  iuLcrpreters  concerned;  the  greater 


THE    PRODUCTION    OF   A   PLAY  221 

the  number  of  them  the  greater  the  need  of  agreement, 
but  the  less  easy  its  achievement.  But  these  abstract 
terms  become  both  too  vague  and  too  positive.  We 
must  cite  examples,  remembering,  however,  that  no  one 
will  ever  duplicate  another  and  that  as  to  each  opinions 
may  legitimately  differ;  such  are  the  drawbacks  to 
aesthetic  law-giving.  And,  as  we  must  quote  a  known 
play,  we  can  but  exemplify  a  second-hand  approach  to 
it.  To  take,  then,  the  occasion  of  the  screen's  falling  in 
*'The  School  for  Scandal"  as  a  simple  case  in  point. 
The  intention  of  the  author  is  obvious  and  the  tradition 
of  its  expression  recoverable  if  broken;  and  it  may  not 
be  practically  worth  while  in  this  instance  to  do  other 
than  register  both  in  the  traditional  form.  But  at  each 
reproduction  of  the  play  there  must  be  something  like 
a  fresh  approach  to  the  situation,  and  as  that  may  — 
theoretically,  at  least,  and  tradition  apart  —  dictate 
a  remoulding  of  even  the  main  lines  of  the  interpreta- 
tion, let  us  assume  for  the  moment  that  we  are  wholly 
free.  The  treatment  of  such  a  situation  must  obviously 
be  a  matter  of  clear  definition  and,  let  us  say,  of  hon- 
ourable agreement  among  the  people  concerned.  One 
uses  this  last  epithet  because  it  allows  for  the  greatest 
possible  freedom  within  the  bounds  of  the  understand- 
ing. You  do  not  want,  even  for  the  sake  of  the  most 
brilliantly  concerted  effect,  suddenly  to  change  your 
Charles  Surface  from  a  man  into  an  automaton,  nor 
must  you  dictate  to  your  Sir  Peter  how  he  should 
feel  and  find  his  way,  breath  by  breath,  to  this  emo- 
tional trysting-place.  If  you  do  you  will  sacrifice  to 
the  second's  mechanical  perfection  the  life  and  the  live- 
liness of  whole  minutes  leading  to  it  and  away  from  it. 
Certainly  there  must  be  mutual  concern  here  for  far 
more  than  the  words  spoken  and  the  places  occupied 
in  the  scene.  But  we  only  need  to  establish  an  identity 
of  intention  among  the  actors,  so  that  they  may  make 
of  the  saliency  of  the  moment  a  knot,  so  to  speak,  into 


222         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

which  they  may  tie,  simply  and  surely,  those  strands  of 
the  play's  purpose  that  they  severally  hold.  A  most 
expert  feat,  no  doubt,  if  it  is  to  be  as  perfect  in  its  exe- 
cution as  its  purpose,  and  one  which  can  by  no  means 
be  left  to  happy  accident.  But  it  will  be  most  fruit- 
fully achieved  if  there  is  no  closer  agreement  upon 
means  than  is  absolutely  needed  to  compass  the  ends. 
And  the  closer  the  agreement  upon  the  end  —  that  is 
to  say,  the  more  skilled  in  sympathy  the  group  of 
actors  are  —  the  less  will  the  precise  means  be  found 
to  matter.  In  the  production  of  plays,  as  in  many 
other  things,  the  art  lies  largely  in  discovering  what 
not  to  do;  and  quite  certainly  the  less  you  are  ever 
seen  doing  the  better. 

One  could  multiply  examples  and  doubtless  find  bet- 
ter ones.  But  the  constricting  fault  of  most  modern 
play  production  is  to  treat  every  possible  moment 
with  the  utmost  severity  of  regulation,  and  it  is  more 
to  our  main  purpose  to  insist  on  the  needlessness  of 
nine-tenths  of  it.  And  we  can  do  so  inferentially  by 
going  on  to  consider  our  second  category. 

If  the  first,  for  the  sake  of  a  single  adjective,  is  to 
include  all  the  conscious  action  of  the  play  the  second 
may  be  said  to  hold  all  the  unconscious  or 
^^~   .  —  deferring  to  the  psychologist's  lingo  — 

conscious        ^j^g    subconscious    action.     Into    it,   then, 
or  sub-  ,    .  •       1         1 

conscious        we  are  to  brmg  every thmg  m  the  plays 

action  acting  —  movement,   expression,  emotion, 

thought  —  which  may,  without  disturb- 
ance of  the  production's  structure  or  to  the  distrac- 
tion of  fellow  actors,  be  carried  forward  in  any  one  of 
fifty  different  ways.  We  say  fifty,  as  we  might  say  a 
dozen  or  a  hundred,  simply  for  comparison  with  the 
single  way  of  the  first  category.  And  there  may  be  in 
theory  as  good  an  aesthetic  reason  for  exactly  enumer- 
ating the  fifty  as  there  is  for  prescribing  the  one.  There 
will  appear,  indeed  in  our  i)lan,  an  indirect  method  of 


THE    PRODUCTION    OF   A    PLAY  223 

prescription  of  the  fifty;  for  the  subconscious  self  has 
still  to  be  regulated.  But  practically  what  we  arc  after 
is  a  consciousness  of  complete  freedom.  And  though 
the  freedom  can  never  be  quite  complete,  neither  can 
any  action  in  the  first  category  be  made  perfectly 
accurate,  for  in  each  case  the  work  is  done  in  the  incal- 
culable human  medium  which  defies  (and  perhaps  de- 
spises) exactitude.  We  aim,  then,  through  this  free- 
dom at  an  appearance  of  spontaneity.  This  may  seem 
to  some  people  a  very  little  thing;  if  it  does  they  have 
not  a  very  discriminating  taste  for  acting.  That  spon- 
taneity itself  is  unattainable  a  ha'porth  of  knowledge 
of  the  art  will  inform  us.  The  task  of  ensuring  its 
appearance  has  exercised  other  writers  than  Diderot, 
and  this  and  the  many  underlying  problems  are  in  one 
way  or  another  stumbling-blocks  to  every  actor  worth 
the  name. 

The  hardening  effect  of  the  "long  run"  upon  acting 
will  be  admitted.     We  may  owe  to  that  system  in 
England  a  care  and  a  finish  —  if  a  trade 
finish !  —  in  production  that  was  unknown         ,      ^ 
before.     But  the  art  of  acting  has  inci-    charybdis 
dentally  well-nigh  been  destroyed  by  it;    of 
for  it  has  reduced  art  to  automatism.    No    automatism 
wonder  people   talk  of   the  cinema  as  a    ^^^  ^5^^" 

substitute  for  the  theatre  when  they  are 

,    .      .  ,     ness 

content    m    their    ignorance    to    see    and 

applaud  an  actor's  thousandth  photographic  repro- 
duction in  his  own  person  of  what  w^as  once  (perhaps) 
a  piece  of  acting.  It  should  be  plain  to  anyone  that  no 
human  being  can  act  "Hamlet"  eight  times  a  week,  if 
acting  is  to  involve  anything  more  than  physical  gym- 
nastics. He  must,  to  escape  intolerable  wear  and  tear, 
keep  the  finer  parts  of  his  human  mechanism  out  of 
commission  for  at  least  two  performances  in  every 
three.  And  the  actor  of  Rosencrantz  is  brought  to  a 
self-defensive  automatism  for  the  very  opposite  reason. 


224         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

If  he  did  not  make  himself  into  a  machine,  the  Httle 
round  of  the  part  travelled  over  and  over  would  reduce 
him  to  a  state  of  histrionic  imbecility.  What  a  piece 
of  work  is  a  man  that  we  should  bring  him,  even  as 
Rosencrantz,  to  the  state  of  a  squirrel  in  a  cage! 

But  the  tendency  to  automatism,  though  lessened, 
is  by  no  means  abolished  by  the  simple  expedient  of 
putting  on  a  play  three  times  a  week  instead  of  eight 
and  letting  the  actors  play  other  parts  on  the  remaining 
nights.  Other  influences  make  for  it:  disciplinary  re- 
hearsals; or  the  actor's  own  effort  to  build  up,  by  one 
trial  after  another,  the  best  possible  performance,  and 
having,  as  he  thinks,  attained  it,  then  to  register  each 
item  and  try  to  preserve  a  constant  combination  of 
them  all.  This  is  a  tempting  method;  for  who  does  not 
want' —  on  the  stage  or  off  —  to  be  always  at  his  best.? 
But  it  is  a  vain  desire,  both  off  the  stage  and  on.  By 
all  means  should  a  man  at  performance,  as  at  rehearsal, 
be  alert  to  eliminate  clumsy  touches  of  expression.  But 
the  quite  conscious  replacing  of  them  with  touches 
more  effective  (once  the  preliminary  periods  of  prepara- 
tion are  over  and  if  he  and  his  part  have  grown  to  a 
single  artistic  entity)  will  result  in  his  considering  these 
details  rather  than  the  entity  which  was  the  objective 
of  his  first  study,  and  altogether  obliterating  under 
these  effects  his  apprehension  of  the  cause,  which  is 
that  artistic  entity's  life.  If  he  anchors  himself  to 
this  bit  of  business,  to  that  intonation,  even  to  a  partic- 
ular trick  of  thought  or  emotion  which  he  finds  he  can 
command,  his  performance  will  become  in  time  a  mosaic 
of  excellent  fragments:  disturb  one,  a  dozen  others  are 
loosened,  and  then,  with  the  oncoming  of  fatigue,  the 
whole  may  begin  to  break  up,  for  there  is  no  vital 
princii)lc  to  unite  them.  He  may  satisfy  himself  at 
some  moment  with  a  particular  reading  of  a  passage 
and  then,  by  a  stroke  of  his  mind,  })e  able  to  tninsfer 
his  conviction  of  it  to  a  subconscious  self  which  will 


THE   PRODUCTION   OF   A   PLAY  225 

faithfully  record  and  can  later  re-express  the  idea: 
his  conscious  mind  thus  being  freed  again  for  the  larger 
view  of  part  and  play.  But  even  so,  when,  in  time,  a 
mass  of  such  detail  has  accumulated  and  is  brought  into 
action  as  a  concrete  whole  by  the  subconscious  mind, 
no  inner  conviction  will  be  prompting  it:  it  will  be 
invariable  and  lifeless. 

The  problem  is  no  easy  one.     There  is  the  natural 
effort  after  economy  to  be  counted  with.    At  one  time 
and  another  an  actor  of  Hamlet  must  try 
and  live  through  the  emotions  of  Hamlet.        ^^® 
But  if  he  were  so  spendthrift  of  his  energies     tionalism 
as  to  try  to  re-experience  them  all  at  one 
performance  it  would  be  long  enough  before  he  could 
rise  to  another.     Some  conventionalism  of  feeling  is  as 
necessary  as  is,  for  the  sake  of  economy  of  thought, 
the  reduction  to  rule  of  the  play's  main  movement. 

And  we  can  conceive,  no  doubt,  purely  conventional 
acting  of  a  very  satisfying  and  beautiful  kind,  appro- 
priate enough  in  its  place.    The  ritual  of  the  Mass  is 
a  performance  of  this  sort,  and  most  imaginative  people 
prefer  it  to  the  ranting,  personal  appeal  of  a  revivalist 
meeting.     Greek  tragedy,  with  its  religious  element, 
sustains   conventional    treatment   well  —  our   modern 
difficulty  being  mainly  to  establish  an  agreement  be- 
tween actors  and  audience  upon  the  alphabet  of  its 
convention.    But  in  the  theatre  of  the  last  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  the  element  of  individual  inter- 
pretation has  come  to  occupy  a  dominating  place,  has 
developed  in  complexity  and  intensity  quite  beyond  the 
compass  of  conventional  expression.     That 
is   clear.     And  though  we  may  lose  thereby    The  limits 
in  dignity  and  force  it  is  to  be  hoped  we  gain    T^gj-gonal 
something   in   vitality  and  subtlety.     It   is    appeal 
possible,  too,  that  the  advance  of  interest 
in  dramatic  art,  with  its  mirrored  effects,  is   due  to 
civilized  resentment  of  a  too  direct  emotional   appeal 


226        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

—  to  fear  of  it,  if  you  will.  There  is  reason  in  such 
an  objection,  sound  reason.  We  resent  the  ranting 
preacher  and  the  frothy  demagogue  because  they  are 
too  intimately  connected  with  the  message  they  bring. 
If  we  dislike  the  men  and  their  method  our  would-be 
welcome  of  the  matter  is  hindered,  though  as  often 
we  may  disapprove  the  matter  and  yet  haK-wittingly 
be  caught  by  its  terms.  God  and  our  country,  our 
honour,  morality  —  it  is  a  stiff  wrench  even  to  seem  to 
be  turning  our  back  upon  these  nobilities;  yet  he  is  a 
poor  demagogue  that  can't  wave  some  such  flag  — 
dressing  his  part,  too,  for  still  better  effect,  in  uniform 
or  canonicals,  the  frock  coat  of  the  statesman  or  the 
tweed  cap  of  Labour.*  But  give  us  the  oraiio  obliqua 
of  art  and  we  are  at  our  ease.  Its  appreciation  puts  us 
to  some  trouble,  no  doubt.  Anyone  can  sit  still  and 
be  preached  at,  but  to  get  the  sense  out  of  a  play,  a 
picture,  or  a  sjTiiphony  we  must  learn  to  do  our  share. 
But  then,  upon  this  third  factor  of  the  play  thus  in- 
truded we  can  exercise  our  criticism  without  prejudice: 
or  we  can  give  sympathy  and  still  withhold  judgment. 
We  can  enter,  friends  and  adversaries  together,  into 
a  world  of  make-believe.  This  is  an  exact  and  no 
derogatory  description  of  it.  It  is  in  that  world,  where 
we  are  free  for  the  moment  from  self-consciousness, 
self-seeking  doubt,  and  fear,  that  our  true  beliefs  are 
made. 

And  so  it  becomes  plainer,  perhaps,  why  in  the 
theatre,  where  the  personal  appeal  is  naturally  so 
strong,  we  need  by  some  means  to  detach  the  actor 
from  himself.  Effort  to  charm  us  by  chorus  girl's 
smile,  comedian's  wink,  or  by  a  tragedian  self-centred 

*  There  was  a  certain  Labour  leader  about  1900  who,  after 
dining  out,  carefully  changed  back  into  more  plebeian  broadcloth 
before  reappearing  in  the  House  of  Commons.  But  the  other  day 
one  turned  up  in  a  dinner-jacket.  He  was  a  privy  councillor,  no 
doubt. 


THE    PRODUCTION    OF   A    PLAY  227 

in  the  limelight  is  the  demagogy  of  drama,  and  rightly 
to  be  resented.  And  it  is  to  be  the  more  condemned; 
for,  at  least,  the  politician  drags  in  no  playwright  as  an 
unwitting  accomplice.  * 

To  ask  for  sheer  impersonation  will  not  serve;  play- 
ing at  disguises  is  only  a  good  child's  game.t  We  need 
interpreters,  but  it  must  truly  be  the  characters  of  the 
play  which  they  interpret.  Working  in  full  conscious- 
ness they  cannot  do  it;  self  will  be  asserted.  Identifica- 
tion of  the  actual  with  the  imaginary,  of  the  actor  with 
his  part,  asking  for  a  murderer  to  play  a  murderer  and 
for  a  saint  to  appear  as  a  saint,  is  as  impossible  as  the 
fiction  of  personation  is  puerile.  And  so  we  are  brought 
to  the  need  for  a  creation  in  the  actor  of  something  like 
an  integral  subconscious  self.| 

In  this  creation  a  double  process  is  involved:  first 
the  mental  search  and  the  provocative  argument  into 

*  Not  that  one  condemns  chorus  girl  or  comedian  for  their  goings- 
on,  as  long  as  they  make  no  pretence  to  be  practising  the  art  of 
the  theatre. 

t  Besides,  it  is  not  really  a  practical  game  in  the  theatre.  Mr. 
W.  T.  Stead  displayed  the  logic  of  it  when  he  demanded,  in  joke 
no  doubt,  that  an  actor  should  play  but  one  part  throughout  his 
career,  lest  illusion  be  spoilt.     See  also  p.  153. 

i  It  might  be  claimed  tliat  there  is  in  all  of  us,  as  product  of  our 
civilization,  a  third  and  entirely  unconscious  self  that  operates  as 
automatically  m  expressing  itself  in  simple  movements  and  gesture 
as  it  does  in  breathing  and  digesting  food.  But  this  is  not  artistic 
expression.  It  is  true  that  this  self,  the  product  of  civilization, 
should  be  perfectly  — •  that  is,  healthily  —  regulated  if  the  artistic 
expression  that  will  later  be  founded  upon  its  activity  is  to  be 
beautiful  and  complete.  But  this  task  we  relegate  to  general  educa- 
tion; and  if  our  school  of  the  theatre  specially  provides  for  such 
training  it  should  do  so  with  little  more  particularity  than  any  in- 
stitution of  the  sort  might  provide  a  gymnasium  in  which  the 
students  could  keep  themselves  fit.  Animals  are  unself-conscious, 
and  in  their  natural  beauty,  having  nothing  further  to  express  by  it, 
put  to  shame  poor  human  beings  engaged  in  artistic  enterprise. 
For  this  reason  they  should  never  be  brought  upon  the  stage  in  a 
play.    The  two  values  contradict  each  other. 


THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

and  around  the  character  and  the  play  that  we  have 

described ;  then  the  sensitizing  of  the  actor's  receptive 

faculties,  mental  and  emotional,  too.*     It  should  be 

a  concurrent   process;  and    the   argument 

^^  ^    will   promote   the  mental  receptivity  —  it 

iiivstcrv  V6t        .  .  . 

again  ^^^^'  ^^  least,    if  the  parties  to   it    direct 

their  attention  more  to  the  play,  the  third 
factor,  than  to  each  other.  The  emotional  part  of  the 
sensitizing  process  is  not  so  demonstrable.  It  is  diffi- 
cult enough  even  to  define  s^^npathy,  and,  in  human 
relations,  it  is  certainly  a  fatal  error  to  try  and  culti- 
vate it  by  prescription.  But  even  in  the  world  of  make- 
believe  one  can  affirm  no  more  than  this :  let  the  actor 
surrender  himself  wholly  to  the  idea  of  his  part  as  it 
forms  itself  to  his  apprehension  under  the  spell  of 
this  generous  study,  and  there  will,  by  his  Muse's  grace, 
be  added  unto  hmi,  as  fruit  of  the  personal  surrender, 
this  mysterious  second  personality,  which  will  be  not 
himself  and  yet  will  be  a  part  of  himself.  He  will  be 
wedded  to  his  idea.  We  make  poetry  of  such  a  relation 
between  two  human  beings:  we  see  or  experience  the 
shadow  of  it  sometimes.  In  its  fullness  it  must  doubt- 
less remain  an  ideal.  Nor  is  its  realization  quite  to  be 
desired;  for  no  two  lives  can  run  wholly  together,  nor 
must  one  yield  passively  to  the  other's  wa3\  Life  de- 
mands separate  and  uncompleted  service.  If  in  some 
other  world  union  could  bring  perfection  that  would  be 
worth  preparing  for.  Both  here  and  now  in  the  world 
of  art  the  impossible  is  possible.  Surrender  to  an  idea 
robs  no  man  of  his  birthright:  these  wedded  beings 
born  of  the  actor's  art  live  for  their  one  purpose  only, 
and  will  perish  unsustained  by  it.  "NVIiile  they  live, 
though,  their  very  limitations  give  them  power,  and 
perfection,  too,  to  a  degree.     In  any  fine  playing  of  a 

*  One  is  tempted  to  add  physical.  Wave  your  hand  suddenly 
within  an  inrli  of  an  artor's  face  and  watch  for  the  automatically 
released  mobility  of  expression. 


THE   PRODUCTION   OF   A   PLAY  229 

part  —  of  Imogen,  shall  we  say?  —  there  is  a  power 
not  the  player's  own,  and  a  beauty  which  certainly 
does  not  accompany  her  off  the  stage.  Nor  can  the 
complete  effect  be  accounted  for  by  adding  together  the 
words  of  Shakespeare,  the  woman's  looks  and  voice, 
the  theatre's  lights  and  scenery.  Pick  the  whole  thing 
to  pieces,  and  you'll  no  more  find  out  the  secret  than 
you'll  find  a  soul  in  the  body's  anatomy.  If  it  does 
not  lie  in  the  surrendered  self,  and  the  possession  for 
the  time  of  the  obedient  body  by  the  changeling  idea, 
then  where .^  Diderot  explains  the  matter  carefully  and 
cleverly.  One  must  answer  that  he  never  can  have 
acted  a  part  in  his  life  and  let  himself  go  in 
it.  That  phrase  is  pregnant.  Now,  every  'f^^  ^^^^^ 
actor  has  experienced,  more  or  less,  the  jT^jj^ggif 
sensation  of  being  under  his  part's  control,  go  >> 
Mind,  there  can  be  delusion  as  to  this, 
with  direful  consequences.  Letting  yourself  go,  when 
no  rounded  and  complete  idea  does  control  you,  is 
like  losing  your  temper,  and  may  result,  likewise,  either 
in  feckless  screaming  or  a  helpless  inarticulation.  Being 
soundly  angry  with  anger's  cause  behind  you  is  another 
matter,  as  everj^body  knows.  One  may  test  and  value 
the  masterly  sensation  both  in  life  and  art  by  the 
extraordinary  coolness  and  clarity  of  mind  that  should 
accompany  it. 

Once  you  have  learnt  the  secret;  then,  as  you  act 
a  part  so  studied,  while  you  may  still  choose  what  to  do 
you  can  feel  assured  that  whatever  you  may  do  will  be 
characteristically  right.  Impulse,  moreover,  to  do  this 
or  that  will  not  wait  upon  effort  or  for  a  particular  call. 
Through  the  sensitive  channel  which  the  interpreter 
has  now  become  will  flow  unchecked  the  thoughts  and 
emotions  generated  in  the  part's  studying.  These  will 
have  been  shaped  (we  recapitulate) ;  those  of  them  upon 
which  the  play's  structure  as  a  work  of  art  depends, 
definitely   and  consciously  —  and  they  must  not  be 


230        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

vague  or  varying,  and  at  each  fixed  point  the  inter- 
preter must  consciously  control  and  direct  them.  He 
must,  moreover,  never  let  this  side  of  the  part's  playing 
escape  his  quite  conscious  control,  or  it  will  degenerate 
into  automatism;  and  automatism  will  not  do.  But  to 
the  rest  he  need  only  subconsciously  attend.  To  de- 
meanour, tones,  gestures,  and  the  like  he  need  now 
oppose  no  mental  bar.*  And  as  they  shape  themselves 
spontaneously  they  will  be  fresher  and  more  vital;  they 
will  come  and  go  with  an  ease  which  interposed  calcu- 
lation could  only  deaden  and  destroy.  If  the  under- 
lying idea  is  just  and  consistent,  if  the  interpreter  is 
physically  trained  and  mentally  and  emotionally  sen- 
sitized —  if  his  faculties,  that  is  to  say,  are  sufficiently 
at  one  with  his  conception  —  then  all  that  he  does  or 
can  do  will  now  have  appropriate  value  and  stand  in 
right  proportion  to  the  whole.  And  this  will  be  so  even 
though  the  appearance  of  what  he  docs  may  never  be 
twice  alike.  Indeed,  it  never  will  be,  because  the  proc- 
ess is  in  a  very  near  sense  natural  and  not  mechanical 
at  all.  And  it  never  should  be  if  we  are  to  take  full 
advantage  of  the  human  medium.  Far  better,  though, 
that  this  principle  of  change,  thus  kept  constantly 
in  flow,  should  not,  half  the  tune,  be  discernible  in 
definite  changes  at  all.  To  try  to  save  a  play's  acting 
from  hardening  by  arbitrary  changes  which  only  dis- 
turb its  right  rhythm  and  melody  is  to  gain  for  it  a  very 
indifferent  freedom.  No  one  wants  a  scene  done  differ- 
ently every  night.  An  actor's  response  to  a  situation 
and  a  line,  his  own  or  another's,  may  well  seem  to  be 
identical  six  times  out  of  ten.  One  only  wants  to  be 
sure  that  it  is  a  genuine  response. 

There  is  a  possible  extreme  of  self-surrender  to  be 
noted  and  avoided.     Against  extra  passivity  the  actor 

*  If  ono  may  borrow  a  simile  from  electrical  engineering:  he 
need  not  pass  their  current  through  the  converter  of  his  conscious 
mmd. 


THE    PRODUCTION    OF   A    PLAY  231 

must  be  on  his  guard,  or  he  will  find  himself,  within 
this  second  category,  the  victim  of  automatism  again. 
He  must   remember  with  what   amazing 
swiftness,  within  such  artificial    limits  as    ^^® 
a  play's  performance,  habit  is  established.      ^^ser  o 
And  unless  the  quiescence  of  the  conscious    again 
mind  helps   the    receptive,   subconscious, 
emotionally  expressive  self  to  be  only  the  more  keenly 
alive  —  and,   even   when  in  complete  physical   quies- 
cence, to  be  actively  alive  *  —  the  method  fails. 

*  I  find  an  instance  of  how  this  may  be  in  the  memory  of  the 
Art  Theatre  at  Moscow  and  a  performance  there  of  Tchekov's 
"The  Cherry  Orchard."  It  will  be  remembered  how,  in  the  third 
act,  Madame  Ranevsky  comes  out  of  the  ballroom  to  hear  of  the 
sale,  asks  but  a  couple  of  brief  questions,  and  then  stays  listening 
till  the  curtain  falls,  never  speaking  another  word.  It  was  not  tiU 
I  re-read  the  play  after  seeing  it  that  I  was  reminded  that  she  could 
not  have  spoken  a  word.  The  impression  left  on  me  by  Madame 
Tchekov's  silent  performance  was  that  she  had  played  a  chief  part 
in  a  long  and  strenuous  scene.  As  she  had.  But  how  was  the  effect 
produced.'*  One  could  answer:  by  doing  nothing.  That  in  a  sense 
would  be  true,  if  one  means  that  there  was  not  —  as  far  as  I  could 
detect  —  any  elaboration  of  business  which,  however  discreetly 
contrived,  must  have  taken  attention  and  detracted  value  from  the 
figure  of  Lopakhin,  who,  flushed  with  his  triumph,  struggling  with 
a  sort  of  shyness,  vocally  dominates  the  scene.  For  such  a  figure 
at  that  moment,  and  throughout  the  play,  is  Madame  Ranevsky 
that  had  the  actress  deliberately  done  anything  at  all  she  must  not 
only  have  captured  all  eyes  herself,  but  have  blinded  us  to  everyone 
else  on  the  stage.  The  stage  directions  say  that  she  weeps  bitterly, 
and  any  actress  might  regard  this  as  an  invitation  to  "score"  by 
that  simplest  of  all  methods  of  scoring.  As  far  as  I  remember, 
Madame  Tchekov  sat  down  at  the  table  as  the  curtain  fell,  and 
that  was  all.  But  whatever  she  did  was  enough.  It  left  her,  as 
she  should  be,  the  central  figure  of  the  scene.  But  more  would  have 
been  more  than  enough,  and  would  inevitably  have  obliterated  the 
others.  Now  we  can  be  quite  sure  that  such  an  effect  was  not  gained 
by  doing  nothmg.  That  would  allow  the  construction  of  the  play 
and  the  mechanical  arrangement  of  the  scene,  with  all  their  virtue, 
far  more  than  their  due.  And  if  this  is  doubted,  substitute  in  such 
a  case  any  one  actress  equally  suitable  in  appearance  and  manner 
for  any  other,  and  sec  if  the  result  is  the  same.    It  might  be  more  to 


232        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

Faced  with  a  school  of  histrionic  sleep-walking  we 
should  return  with  joy  to  such  a  confident  brilliancy  of 
execution  as  the  competent  player  deals  out  to  us  upon 
a  piano.  That  is  not  to  be  despised,  upon  occasion, 
even  when  translated  into  the  feebler  conditions  of 
the  theatre.  But  we  are  now  seeking  for  the  peculiar 
quality  which  the  constituents  of  this  art  of  acting  can 
be  made  to  yield  us;  and  that  must,  it  would  seem, 
reside  in  some  particular  virtue  of  the  human  medium 
itself,  since  that  is  the  drama's  distinctive  possession. 
We  see  its  vices  easily  and  often  enough,  an  egotism 
that  must  dislocate  any  artistic  form.*  Its  virtue, 
then,  should  probably  be  sought  in  the  opposite  direc- 


the  point  to  argue  that  INIadame  Tchekov  reaped  at  that  moment 
by  entire  passivity  what  she  had  sown  in  action  during  the  rest  of 
the  play,  and  that  having  set  her  face  as  one  sets  a  clock  she  could 
have  safely  left  her  Lopakhin  to  play  the  scene  while  she  thought 
of  what  she  would  have  for  supper;  and  that  if  she  would  do  no 
such  thing  it  had  only  to  be  from  respect  for  the  rest  of  her  per- 
formance, or  self-respect  generally,  or  regard  for  her  audience.  Why 
bring  in  this  last  consideration?  How  can  an  audience  distinguish 
the  state  of  mind,  or  the  degree  of  emotion,  present  behind  a  care- 
fully expressioned  face  and  an  appropriately  attitudmized  figure? 
An  answer  is  implied  in  the  fact  that  to  no  discerning  audience,  or 
upon  any  important  occasion,  would  the  most  callous  performer 
of  a  part  risk  impoverishing  the  scene  by  distracting  herself  from 
it.  Is  this  mere  superstition,  to  be  yielded  to  when  fear  is  upon 
you,  or  is  there  any  value  in  this  subconscious  activity?  If  so,  by 
what  process  is  its  power  conveyed?  Are  we  to  suppose  that  emo- 
tional rays  of  some  sort  emanate  from  the  still,  silent  figure?  I  do 
not  pretend  to  say.  But  personal  magnetism  is  a  very  palpable 
thing,  and  why  it  should  not  be  controlled,  characterized,  and 
directed,  I  do  not  know. 

*  Let  me,  however,  record  my  personal  experience  that  only 
bad  actors  are  artistic  egotists  (though  there  are  other  sorts  to  be 
found  in  tlie  theatre,  as  elsewhere),  or,  at  least,  that  their  badness 
is  generally  in  flirect  ratio  to  their  egotism.  But  then  it  is  badness 
in  relation  to  the  play,  not  to  their  own  performances  —  which, 
alas,  are  all  that  the  undiscerning  public  (and  therefore  success- 
hardened  uctors)  seem  to  care  about. 


THE   PRODUCTION    OF   A   PLAY  233 

tion.  And  this  may  well  be  found  in  the  very  human 
faculty  of  sympathy  —  experience  transmuted  to  in- 
stinct —  in  its  integration  and  epitomizing,  , 
under  the  guise  of  art,  of  that  great  human  ^^^^^^^  *  ^ 
achievement,  by  which  to  the  calculable  sympathy 
sura  of  fellowship  there  is  added  a  mys- 
terious gift.  We  call  it  the  spirit  of  a  race,  the  morale 
of  a  regiment,  the  character  of  a  family  or  an  assembly. 
For  as  with  music;  —  when  melody  and  harmony  have 
been  accounted  for  and  praised,  through  these  we  have 
been  spoken  to,  we  find,  of  supernal  things  —  so  it  is, 
too,  with  great  drama  finely  shown  us.  What  is  that, 
seemingly,  but  the  repetition  of  words  and  the  move- 
ments of  men  and  women  for  an  hour  or  two  upon  a  lit 
and  painted  stage?  And  yet,  by  furthering  with  their 
best  thoughts  the  thoughts  of  the  poet,  and  more,  far 
more,  by  yielding  themselves  utterly,  body  and  spirit, 
as  instruments  to  the  harmony  of  the  play's  purpose, 
a  company  of  actors  does  bring  to  birth  a  thing  of 
powerful  beauty  that  was  not  in  the  play  before,  that 
is  not  in  themselves,  but  has  now  some  of  the  absolute 
virtue  of  fine  music,  some  of  the  quality  that  can  make 
small  things  great.     There  is  honour  in  this  art. 

As  yet,  in  our  modern  theatre,  the  art  of  acting  has 
been  but  outlined.  We  guess  at  the  fine  ritual  of  Greek 
drama,  at  the  splendid  crude  pageantry  of 

the  mediaeval   stage,   we  can  recall   to  life      ,  .f,,      , 

-  .  (.1  •        ,  •  ,      childnooa 

somethmg    or     the    passionate    enjoyment     ^f  ^j^g  ^j.^ 

of  swift  words  which  must  have  fired  the 
Elizabethan  actors.  The  drama  of  that  fifty  years 
was  like  a  tongue  of  the  Renaissance  flame  lick- 
ing into  splendour  our  English  common  life.  The 
eighteenth  century  gives  us  the  comedy  of  manners; 
truly  not  much  more.  But  good  manners  were  of 
artistic  value  upon  the  stage  when  they  were  valued 
in  the  world,  and  they  might  be  appreciated  now  for 
other  reasons.     The  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  cen- 


234         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

turies  have  seen  also  the  dominance  of  the  "star" 
actor  with  his  pocketful  of  popular  effects.  One  does 
not  mean  to  smother  in  such  a  category  the  fame  of  a 
Garrick,  a  Kean,  a  Salvini,  a  Duse,  whose  genius  must 
have  shone  bright  in  any  surroundings ;  one  could  bring 
other  names  besides  to  the  completion  of  an  honourable 
list.  And  even  the  pretenders  to  great  title,  who  do 
more  harm  to  their  absolutist  cause  than  good  to  them- 
selves, are  more  sinned  against  by  the  system  than  they 
are,  to  begin  with,  wilful  sinners  against  their  art.  A 
"star"  is  not  necessarily  a  being  whose  one  aim  is  to 
outshine.  His  plaint,  on  the  contrary,  is  more  often 
that  he  cannot  find  adequate  reinforcement  for  his 
beams.  He  pathetically  asks  why.  It  is  an  innocent 
question,  but  for  all  that  such  a  pertinent  one  that 
in  the  validity  of  the  answer  lies  the  theatre's  whole 
destiny. 

Let  us  think  of  a  performance  to  which  the  audience 
should  come,  ignorant  of  the  play,  its  author,  producer, 
to  be  given  no  programme,  nor  told  the  name  of  any 
actor  there.  If  this  were  an  ideal,  its  fulfilment,  as  with 
most  ideals,  might  be  a  little  too  arid  to  be  quite  desir- 
able. But  the  supposition  does  point  to  a  concentration 
upon  the  acted  play  and  upon  nothing  else  whatever. 
It  presumes  that  in  favour  of  this  it  is  as  important  to 
de-personalize  actors,  producer,  and  dramatist  as  it  is 
for  the  audience  themselves  to  sit  attentive  and  anony- 
mous. Who  has  not  been  at  a  play  with  great  persons 
prominent  in  a  box,  and  half  the  spectators  wondering 
how  they  were  taking  it.'^  It  is  a  dift'erence  of  degree  — 
not  of  kind  —  if,  while  the  first  act  drags,  we  are  saying 
to  ourselves  "Wait  till  Miss  Smith  comes  on,"  or,  when 
the  curtain  falls  on  the  third,  "How  well  Mr.  Brown 
did  that!"  And  though  the  star's  supporter  may  think 
that  in  his  ])layi!ig  of  Rosencrantz  he  gives  himself 
wholeheartedly  to  Hamlet  the  play,  and  the  player  of 
Hamlet  the  Prince  believe  of  himself  the  same,  at  the 


THE    PRODUCTION   OF   A   PLAY  235 

best  they  both  reckon  without  the  idolatry  which  is 
innate  in  the  whole  affair  from  the  moment  the  one 
"sees  himself"  as  Hamlet  and  the  other  is  engaged  to 
"support"  him,  down  to  the  arrival  of  the  audience 
intent  upon  the  attractions  of  their  favourite  actor,  and 
only  deepening  damnation  by  saying  reverently  under 
their  breath,  "And  in  Shakespeare,  you  know!"  It  is 
for  this  idolatry  that  we  must  somehow  substitute  a  faith 
in  the  living  drama  itself.  Still,  let  us  not  be  too  supe- 
rior. We  have  most  of  us  joined  at  some  time  in  the 
"roar  of  applause"  to  which  the  popular  actor  has  so 
modestly  bowed  his  head,  and  have  enjoyed  the  roaring 
as  much  as  he  has  —  possibly  more,  for  with  accus- 
tomed success  there  comes,  even  at  the  moment,  weari- 
ness and  a  bitter  aftertaste.  And  if  this  sort  of  thing 
may  be  said  only  to  fit  the  childhood  of  an  art  it  is  the 
more  welcome,  therefore,  to  the  child-mind  in  our- 
selves, nourished  on  those  games  of  make-believe  in 
which  we  ourselves  were  glorious  protagonists.  The 
joy  of  the  theatre  to  many  of  us  is  that  it  stimulates 
the  fading  memory  of  them.  But  it  may  be,  too,  that 
perennial  regret  for  the  days  of  the  great  actor  marks 
more  than  the  personal  ageing  of  the  particular  grum- 
bler; it  may  show  some  general  maturing  of  mind 
through  a  cycle  of  theatrical  culture  of  whose  curve  we 
are  not  yet  aware,  under  whose  influence,  also,  the  race 
of  great  actors,  in  the  sense  of  our  use  of  the  epithet,  is 
perishing.  And  it  does  certainly  seem  that  in  these 
days  —  in  answer,  it  may  be,  to  our  present  need  of  an 
interpretative  art  —  there  is  being  precipitated  from 
the  jolly  crudities  we  have  so  far  enjoyed  a  new  idea 
of  the  theatre  which  —  little  more  than  an  idea  as 
yet  —  is  making  other  and  harder  demands  upon  actors 
and  audience  both,  but  has  a  far  richer  promise  to  fulfil. 
This  demand,  as  it  has  fallen  on  the  playwright,  he 
has  honoured  fairly  so  far,  even  if  we  must  qualify  the 
response  as  at  times  rather  rigid  and  perverse;  the  in- 


236         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

evitable  consequence,  this,  of  his  estrangement  from  a 
Hving  theatre.  He  has  been  lucky  and  unkicky  both 
in  this  detachment:  the  crippled,  half- 
J^^  dead  theatre  has  been  only  luckless  in  this 

of  its  ^^  ^^  other  deprivations.     And  upon  the 

adolescence  actor,  powerless  to  save  his  own  artistic 
soul  —  not  having,  indeed,  in  isolation  any 
soul  to  save  —  the  accumulated  demands  of  a  renais- 
sance are  now  heavy.  His  obedience  must  be  asked  to 
a  stern  and  searching  training  of  body,  mind,  and 
imagination.  Next,  he  must  turn  his  back  upon  all  the 
attractive  tricks  which  save  hun  so  much  trouble  and 
can  earn  him  such  applause.  And,  finally,  he  must 
be  ready  to  surrender  himself  and  to  merge  his  care- 
fully cultivated  artistic  identity  in  a  company  of  his 
fellows,  believing  that  when  in  each  product  of  their 
mutual  work  it  again  emerges,  if  he  will  often  not  have 
gained  as  much  as  he  gave,  yet  he  will  not  have  given 
in  vain. 

This  may  be  much;  but  it  is,  after  all,  no  more  than 
the  world  asks  of  most  of  her  workers.  Is  the  actor  to 
take  his  place  among  them,  or  does  he  want  to  stay 
playing  with  the  other  spoiled  children.'^ 

He,  in  his  turn,  may  ask  of  us,  his  audience,  what 
taste  we'll  show  for  the  results  of  all  this.  Well,  it  is 
the  privilege  of  truth  to  make  itself  believed,  and  of 
true  art  to  command  respect,  but  of  neither,  doubtless, 
to  hold  us  by  their  first  tentative  strivings.  To  these 
we  must  extend  patience  and  an  interest  more  in  the 
end  than  in  the  iimnediate  means.  Few  of  us  have  the 
eye  of  faith,  though,  or  the  knowledge  that  goes  out  to 
meet,  or  even  the  sympathy  that  will  sustain  the  single- 
minded  adventurer.  And  many  strivings  in  the  theatre 
fail  because  allegiance  to  an  uninspired  and  unin- 
structcd  audience  means  the  making  of  tlic  best  of  that 
world  of  approval  even  at  the  expense  of  I  he  more  dimly 
seen  salvation  of  an  empiric  art.    Therefore  it  is  that 


THE   PRODUCTION   OF   A   PLAY  237 

this  third  factor  in  the  theatre's  future  is  all-important. 
An  audience  there  must  be.  Not  the  finest  playing  of 
the  best  play  in  the  world  can  fully  exist  without  it. 
Its  presence  is  the  logical  extension  of  the  co-operation 
between  actors  and  playwright,  and  between  the  actors 
themselves,  upon  which  the  whole  art  rests.  Not  many 
steps  further  can  the  theatre  even  go  than  its  audience 
will  wholeheartedly  follow.  Nor  should  it  wish  to, 
for  in  this  wider  partnership  is  the  art's  final  strength. 
In  the  collective  consciousness  so  formed  by  play- 
wrights, actors,  and  audience  we  can  gain  from  the 
acted  drama  an  understanding  of  human  relationships 
deeper  and  subtler  than  words  and  their  reasoning  can 
give.  Sensitized  by  art,  overtones  are  added  to  our 
nature's  scale.  And  what  more  wonderful  instrument 
has  man  to  play  upon  than  is  this  living  self?  What 
greater  capacity  for  an  orchestration  of  humanity,  with 
all  its  thoughts  and  passions,  will  he  find  than  lies  in 
a  company  of  men  and  women  highly  attuned.'* 


Chapter  VI 

Some  Current  Difficulties 

THIS  book's  concern  is  to  establish  a  point  of 
view  of  the  theatre  that  is  unfamihar  perhaps, 
if  not  new.  Much  successful  achievement, 
therefore,  under  the  present  system  falls  outside  its 
scope,  and  many  efforts  at  reform  must  be  seen  at  an 
obscuring  angle.  Not  that  one  wishes  to  decry  either 
success  itself  that  has  no  further  cares,  or  the  gallant 
struggles  of  the  victims  of  the  present  conmiercial 
circumstances  to  reconcile  contradictory  causes  and 
effects.  Belief  persists  in  them  that  if  only  the  thistle 
seed  is  good  enough  some  sort  of  grapes  will  result. 
Why  should  not  art  and  twenty  per  cent,  go  hand  in 
hand.'^  All  we  should  ask  for  is  a  good  play  well  acted. 
What  can  the  sj^stem  matter .^^  And  it  is  true  enough 
that  when  it  comes  to  putting  ideas  into  practice  there 
w^ill  always  be  unsuspected  difficulties,  one's  own  in- 
capacities not  least  among  them.  Then  is  no  time  to 
be  discussing  the  right  way.  One  does  the  best  one 
can.  So  it  may  be  worth  our  while  now,  perhaps,  to 
end  by  surveying  some  of  the  minor  problems  that  will 
beset  compromise;  to  demolish,  if  we  can,  a  few  of  the 
fallacies  that  haunt  the  indeterminate  space  between 
the  two  worlds  which  one  will  be  pledged  to  make  the 
best  of.  For  this  is  the  worst  of  such  a  situation;  once 
committed  you  must  protest  your  satisfaction  with  it 
or  go  forward,  or  go  back;  it  is  the  worst  of  a  half-way 
house  that,  as  no  road  is  ever  straight,  you  are  bound 
to  be  a  bit  in  the  wrong  direction  when  you  rest  there. 
And  the  best  of  a  point  of  view  is  that  it  overlooks 
difficulties.  But  one  does  not  occupy  it  unsympatheti- 
cally  for  jill  that. 

In  llio  theatre,  though,  the  path  of  compromise  is 
hard.      "Certainly,"   says   the   patron   of   art   to   the 


SOME    CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  239 

ardent   young   reformer,    "give   me    good   plays    well 
acted.    I  ask  no  more,"  and  he  puts  down  some  money. 
He  might  as  well  go  to  a  nurseryman  and 
ask  for  a  fully  developed  garden  by  Thurs-    Compromise 
day    week.      The  nurseryman     could,    no    catchwords 
doubt,   produce   the  effect   of   one  which 
would  last,  say,   till  Friday  fortnight.     A  close  par- 
allel.    The  money  is    spent  —  some   theatre  landlord 
probably  gets  most  of  it  —  the  patron  of  art  then  be- 
thinks himself  that  the  drama  is  an  extravagant  pas- 
time and  an  unsatisfactory  business.     But  it  is  n't  a 
pastime,   and   any   business   would   be   unsatisfactory 
run  on  such  lines.    And  even  if  you  only  want  to  have 
good  plays  well  acted,  that  is  n't  a  business  enterprise 
either. 

And  the  theatre  suffers  from  catchwords.  The  word 
"repertory"  has  become  almost  a  curse.  In  America 
the  term  "Little  Theatre"  has  acquired  so  many  signifi- 
cances as  now  to  have  none.  One  may  best  qualify 
a  little  theatre  by  saying  that  if  it  is  a  success  you 
wish  it  were  bigger,  and  if  it  is  a  failure  you  wish  that 
it  were  n't  there  at  all.  A  repertory  theatre,  according 
to  the  enthusiasts,  may  be  anything  from  the  Comedie 
Frangaise  to  a  band  of  beginners  who  produce  plays 
haphazard  in  a  back  drawing-room  and  are  animated 
by  what  they  call  the  repertory  idea.  What,  in  heaven's 
name,  is  that.^^  You  might  as  well  have  an  idea  that 
you  run  a  motor-car  by  pouring  petrol  in  somewhere  — 
into  the  radiator,  perhaps.  If  the  term  "repertory" 
is  to  keep  any  specific  meaning  at  all  it  should  only  be 
used  for  an  organization  by  which  plays  are  kept  as 
ready  for  the  stage  —  to  make  comparison  between 
a  simple  and  a  complex  business  —  as  books  are  kept 
to  your  hand  in  a  library.  If  a  clearer  definition  is 
needed  —  and  if  one  is  to  argue  the  advantage  of  a 
system  one  cannot  be  too  clear  —  it  will  be  found  that, 
as  a  matter  of  practice,  the  "repertory  idea"  must 


240        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

consent  to  be  bound  by  conditions  very  near  akin  to 
the  following.  In  the  theatre  expressing  it  no  single 
play  must  be  given  for  more  than  two  or  three  per- 
formances running,  or  for  more  than  three  or  four  in 
a  week,  and  at  least  three  or  four  different  plays  must 
be  performed  in  a  week;  so  that  as  a  consequence  no 
one  play  can  be  performed  more  than  about  a  hundred 
times  in  a  season.  But  it  may  be  played  in  every  one 
of  a  hundred  seasons,  as,  no  doubt,  certain  plays  in 
the  repertory  of  the  Theatre  Frangais  have  been.  And 
a  theatre  is  not  worked  in  this  way  because  of  some 
vague  ideal  behind  it,  but  because  the  demand  it  thus 
fulfils  involves  this  particular  sort  of  organization,  and 
can  be  satisfied  by  no  other  —  as  is  demonstrable  and 
as  we  had  better  proceed  to  demonstrate. 

A  "stock"  theatre,  with  a  permanent  company  pro- 
ducing fresh  plays  week  by  week,  or  month  by  month, 
is  not  a  repertory  theatre.  A  permanent  company  is 
in  itself  a  very  desirable  thing;  but  to  produce  a  play 
at  one  time,  let  it  lapse,  and  revive  it  at  another  is  no 
more  to  keep  it  alive  than  it  would  be  if  the  process 
were  applied  to  a  human  body.  Nor,  again,  is  a  season 
of  a  few  months  or  less,  in  which  half  a  dozen  plays  — 
for  all  that  they  are  played  variously  week  by  week  — 
have  been  rehearsed  at  a  stretch  by  a  company  espe- 
cially engaged  for  them,  more  than  by  courtesy  a  reper- 
tory season.  It  is  at  best  a  temporary  lath-and-plaster 
fagade  for  a  repertory  theatre.  Walk  up  the  steps, 
push  open  the  door,  and  there  is  nothing  behind.  There 
are,  moreover  —  it  may  be  stated  pretty  dogmatically 
—  only  two  logical  and  economical  ways  of  organizing 
the  drama  as  a  continuing  and  professional  activity:  by 
a  full-fledged  repertory  system,  if  artistic  economy  is 
what  you  are  after;  for  long  runs,  if  you  want  to  make 
all  the  money  you  can  in  the  shortest  possible  time  (you 
may  equally  lose  it).  All  compromise  between  the 
two  systems  means  waste  of  money  or  of  energy,  extrav- 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  241 

agance,  and  treble  the  work  for  half  the  result  —  not 
even  for  half,  indeed,  but  rather  for  a  different  kind  of 
result  altogether. 

Now  it  should  be  freely  owned  that  there  is  much 
to  be  said  for  the  long-run  system  from  the  public's 
point  of   view,    something   from   the   play- 
wright's, and  a  great  deal  from   the  busi-      The 
ness  manager's:    its   dominance,  indeed,  is        f+tT^^ 
the  charter  of  his  own.  long-run 

In  a  big,  busy-living  city  it  is  a  con-  system 
venience  for  the  playgoer  to  know  that 
a  play  is  at  his  service  upon  any  evening  he  may  be 
moved  to  go  to  it.  For  this  all  he  seems  to  sacrifice  is 
the  loss  of  those  pla!ys  that  exhaust  their  demand  in  a 
single  month  oj  his  absence  or  oVer-occupation,  but  as 
they  are  mostly  classed  as  failures  he  hardly  regrets 
them.  As  to  the  plays  that  have  little  chance  even  of  a 
thirty-day  popularity,  managers,  as  a  rule,  do  not 
produce  them  at  all.  But  he  does  not  stop  to  think 
what  he  misses  in  this  direction.  A  play  to  him 
is  (quite  reasonably)  not  altogether  a  play  until  it 
is  to  be  seen  in  a  theatre.  So  the  average  playgoer 
in  a  big,  theatre-filled  capital  city  will  never  actively 
complain  of  the  long-run  system.  At  the  worst  he 
wearies  of  the  plays  he  does  find,  for  so  many  of 
them  seem  to  run,  not  for  a  hundred  nights,  but 
(under  changing  titles)  forever,  and  he  slackens  in  his 
playgoing. 

The  city  whose  theatres  are  served  by  the  touring 
system  barters,  so  to  speak,  a  disadvantage  in  this  par- 
ticular form  of  the  long  run,  for  some  of  the  advantages 
and  some  disadvantages  of  the  old  stock  theatre  ways. 
The  playgoer  in  Manchester,  Liverpool,  Glasgow,  Bos- 
ton, Philadelphia,  and  Pittsburg  does  certainly  seem  to 
get  his  drama  fresh  and  fresh.  But  in  practice  he  rather 
receives  it  stale  and  'stale.  Plays  either  reach  him  when 
their  popularity  in  London  and  New  York  has  been 


242         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

exhausted  and  their  principal  players  are  sick  of  them, 
or  as  slavish  imitations  of  the  original  production. 
And  in  these  days  of  high  wages  and  costly  transport 
many  do  not  reach  him  at  all. 

But  the  long-run  system,  under  whatever  guise, 
suits  the  business-manager.*  It  suits  him  best  if  he 
owns  or  runs  the  theatre  building  and  lets  someone  else 
in  to  produce  the  plays.  By  letting  the  temporary 
partner  out  as  quickly  as  he  let  him  in  —  and  quicker! 
—  he  can  cut  his  losses  on  the  failures,  while  he  takes 
profit  on  success  equivalent  not  only  to  the  commercial 
merits  of  the  play,  but  to  the  preferential  value  of  his 
building,  for  that  has  enabled  him  to  strike  a  good 
bargain  with  the  producer  beforehand.  In  any  case  his 
finance  is  simple;  and  that  is  a  great  thing.  He  invests 
in  a  production,  sucks  it  dry,  and  scraps  (or  all  but)  the 
material,  turns  off  the  hands  employed,  starts  his  next 
venture  on  a  new  and  appropriate  basis  of  expense,  and 
keeps  his  overhead  charges  at  a  minimum. 

The  system  seems  to  suit  the  dramatist,  but  he  is 
unwise  to  believe  so.  Certainlj'^  if  his  play  is  a  success 
he  makes  money  quickly.  And  he  has  all  the  available 
acting  talent  of  London  or  New  York  to  choose  from: 
he  has  the  monopoly  both  of  the  theatre's  resources 
and  of  the  attention  of  the  cast,  while  he  coaxes  or 
drills  them,  or  watches  them  being  drilled,  to  a  clock- 
work precision  of  ensemble  and  a  meticulous  obedience 
to  the  last  comma  of  his  text. 

But  a  slight  objection  to  the  whole  glorious  business 
(and  the  dramatist  should  have  been  the  first  to  note 
this)  is  that  it  tends  utterly  to  destroy  the  art  of 
acting.  This  cannot  prosper  under  such  conditions 
of  employment.  It  may  profit  a  little  by  failure,  but 
what  it  cannot  endure  is  the  numbing  monotony  of 
success.  So  acting's  place  is  taken  by  the  artifice  of 
stage  efi'cct,  a  mcclianism  guaranteed  fool-proof,  which 

*  I  use  the  term  here  in  its  general,  not  its  particular,  sense. 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  243 

makes,  therefore,  for  the  encouragement  of  fools  both 
among  the  actors  and  in  the  audience.    It  may  really 
be  asserted  that  most  young  playgoers  of  to-day  do  not 
know  what  acting  is.      They  yield   them- 
selves happily  to  the  emotional  illusions  of    Verdict: 
the  play  itself,  but  the  stage  attitudes  they    t^^e  long  run 
are  accustomed  to,  that  bear  the  stigmata    f^^^ 
of  the  art  of  its  interpretation,  have  about    destruction 
the   relation    to  acting  that  an  oleograph    of  the  art  of 
has  to  a  Rembrandt.  acting 

And  this  alone  should  suffice  to  condemn 
the  long-run  system,  whatever  may  be  its  convenience  to 
public  or  financier,  for  one  cannot  too  often  insist  that  the 
art  of  acting  is  the  theatre's  very  flesh  and  blood.  Be- 
sides this,  however,  it  keeps  from  the  stage,  year  in 
and  year  out,  about  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  best 
drama  written;  leaves  it  to  grow  dusty  on  bookshelves, 
while  as  a  discouragement  to  the  new  writing  of  plays 
fit  to  survive  what  could  be  more  effective?  The 
qualities  that  look  for  slow-gathering  appreciation  and 
make  for  survival  are  naturally  no  more  in  demand  in 
a  profit-seeking  theatre  than  they  are  in  the  business 
of  publishing  best-selling  novels  and  popular  magazines. 
The  publisher  however,  helped  by  cheaper  manufac- 
turing conditions  and  easy  distribution,  may,  and 
usually  does,  put  out  an  assortment  of  books  good, 
bad,  and  indifferent.  But  the  long-run  manager,  if 
he  be  a  consistently  good  man  of  business  never  ner- 
vously or  hypocritically  hedging  in  the  direction  of 
"art,"  should  rather  try  to  specialize  in  the  production 
of  the  unfit. 

But  to  replace  the  long  run  by  the  short  run,  by  the 
experimental  matinee  or  the  hastily  concocted  "reper- 
tory" season,  is  no  remedy;  and  not  even  the  use  or 
misuse  of  that  blessed  word  "repertory"  will  make 
it  one.  We  may  protest  in  the  interests  of  the  actor's 
art  against  his  repetition  of  a  single  part  eight  times 


244         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

a  week  for  six  months  or  more,*  but  it  does  not  follow 
that  either  in  his  art's  interest  or  his  own  he  will 
welcome  the  slave-driving  and  the  uncertainties,  artis- 
tic and  financial,  which  mostly  character- 
'^^^  ize  the   alternatives    offered    him.       The 

"  rttle      long-run  system  with  its  careful  prepara- 
better  ^^^^  does  at  least  ensure  him  against  making 

an  unpremeditated  fool  of  himself.  Personal 
success  may  be  longer  in  coming,  but  it  is  obviously 
easier  to  sustain  when  it  is  partly  measured,  not  by 
how  many  plays  he  will  appear  in,  but  how  few.  The 
financial  conditions  he  finds  either  very  good  or  very 
bad,  but  that  uncertainty  has  its  own  queer  attraction. 
Besides,  this  is  the  tune  that  is  called,  and  apparently 
he  must  dance  to  it.  London  success  brings  him  leisure 
also,  which  he  can  employ  in  playing  golf,  or  collecting 
pictures,  or  even  in  a  second  occupation.  Lastly,  as 
many  of  this  stage  generation  have  never  learnt  to  act 
at  all,  but  only  to  give  exhibitions  of  stage  artifice, 
they  really  do  not  suspect  what  an  absorbing  business 
it  can  be.  It  should  be  added,  though,  that  the  younger 
people  do  struggle  against  this  crippling  of  their  oppor- 
tunities. And  for  this  we  have  to  thank  both  the 
stirring  of  their  spirits  by  such  institutions  as  the 
Academy  of  Dramatic  Art  and  the  example,  for  all 
their  failures,  of  the  compromising  reformers. 

But  let  us  now  analyze  the  artistic  conduct  of 
a  few  of  these  reforming  efforts,  and  discover  why, 
with  all  their  good  will,  based  as  they  are  upon  a 
contradiction,  they  cannot  serve  as  solutions  of  a 
difficulty.  As  essays  in  discontent  they  are  a  ^mir- 
able,  and  as  evidence  of  a  readiness  to  do  anything 
rather   than  keep   on   grumbling    even   more    admir- 

*  A  recent  theatrical  entertainment  has  survived  for  something 
like  six  years.  But,  indeed,  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  why,  when 
a  theatre  serves  a  city  of  six  million  peoph^  and  its  rising  generations, 
not  to  mention  its  visitors,  a  play  should  not  run  forever. 


SOME    CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  245 

able.     But    they  had  better  not  lay  claim   to  essen- 
tial virtues. 

To  begin  with,  there  can  be  no  continuously  fruitful 
combination  between  the  efforts  to  sustain  a  play-pro- 
ducing establishment  as  a  sound  compet- 
itive business  enterprise  and  the  desire  to    ^^y  niany 

make  a  theatre  a  home  for  dramatic  art.    saHant 
T,.  .  ,  1,  1  1  efforts  at 

h  mancial  results  may  be  as  good  —  or  as    j-gfonn  have 

bad  —  in  the  one  case  as    the  other,  and    failed 
even  the  artistic  results  may  look,  on  the 
surface  and  for  a  time,  alike.      But,  aims  differing,  coun- 
sel will  always   be  divided;    and,  indeed,  the  outlook, 
intentions,  and  the  metliods  employed  towards  these  sep- 
arate ends  should  differ  absolutely  and  totally. 

The  efforts  to  reform  the  theatre  during  the  last 
fifteen  or  twenty  years  in  English-speaking  countries 
can  roughly  be  split  into  two  classes:  those  that  have 
had  enough  capital  and  those  that  have  n't;  ten  per 
cent.,  perhaps,  have  been  of  the  first  class  and  ninety  of 
the  second.  And  one  besetting  danger  has  been  that 
the  capitalist,  measuring  the  probabilities  of  success  by 
the  amount  of  money  provided,  and  yet  in  his  heart 
rather  doubtful  of  the  whole  affair,  has  been  apt  to  de- 
mand immediate  results,  financial  or  artistic,  preferably 
both.  This  demand  has,  of  course,  led  to  an  inordinate 
expenditure  of  capital  energy,  difficult  to  sustain.  The 
promoters  were  making,  it  may  be,  for  full-fledged 
repertory,  but  you  cannot,  so  to  speak,  stick  feathers 
into  such  an  enterprise.  For  a  theatre  worthy  of  its 
purpose  is  a  complex  living  organism  —  a  thing  of 
growth.  It  will  grow,  moreover,  in  seemingly  unpre- 
destined  ways  and  at  uncertain  pace;  so  many  influences 
does  it  owe  life  to.  The  strain  of  trying,  god-like,  to 
create  at  a  stroke  a  full-grown  thing,  the  impossibility 
of  avoiding  serious  mistakes  when  neither  time  nor 
energy  can  be  allowed  for  their  correction,  must  lead 
to  an  exhausted  smash.     One  is  then  told  that  the 


246         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

theatre  would  n't  "pay,"  or  that  it  wouldn't  "work." 
Of  course  it  would  n't.  Good  heavens,  a  fisherman 
spends  more  patience  to  get  one  trout;  and,  what  is 
more,  it  is  the  fishing  he  enjoys! 

Then  there  have  been  the  enterprises  of  the  cautious 

capitalist,  who  watches  his  expenditure  with  care  and 

plays  for  the  safety  of  each  step  he  takes. 

„  ?^   ,^       These   have  endured  better,  but   naturally 
cautious         .,1  ii"         T-'P  • 

capitalist  ^^  ''^^  ^^^^  ^*  ^  limitation  or  enterprise, 
and,  as  a  general  consequence,  of  a  low 
standard  of  work.  For  some  degree  of  comprehen- 
siveness is  a  necessary  virtue  in  a  theatre,  and  you 
cannot",  moreover,  retain  talent  in  your  service  unless 
you  give  it  good  opportunity.  Into  this  category  would 
fall  most  of  the  "short-run"  theatres,  which  by  mis- 
placed courtesy  are  dubbed  "repertory." 

There  is  something,  of  course,  to  be  said  for  the 
short  run,  though  nothing  that  is  unequivocally  in  its 
favour.  It  enables  a  theatre  to  produce  a  number  of 
plays;  and,  if  the  audience  could  be  perfectly  mobilized 
—  if,  that  is  to  say,  any  theatre  could  relj''  upon  the 
constant  and  immediate  support  of  a  definite  number 
of  people  for  every  production  —  the  system  would  be 
so  provokingly  simple  and  so  financially  sound  that  its 
artistic  defects  and  limitations  would  be  too  easily  for- 
given. But  the  system's  rigidity  is  its  undoing.  On 
the  artistic  side  this  is  patent  from  the  beginning.  On 
the  business  side,  why  ever  expect  to  achieve  such 
a  mechanically  perfect  thing?  And  if  the  business 
ministered  to  the  art  as  it  should  do,  instead  of  art  being 
asked  to  fit  itself  to  business  requirements,  the  attempt 
would  never  be  made.  But  business  has  the  whip  hand; 
and  the  scheme  seems  so  thrifty,  and  if  you  have  only  so 
much  money  and  do  so  want  to  do  something  relatively 
worth  doing  the  temptation  is  great.  Wo,  however,  must 
concern  ourselves  willi  the  absolute  objections  to  it. 
Should  such  a  theatre  have  a  permanent  company? 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  247 

The  answer  being  inevitably  Yes,  several  difficulties  at 
once  arise.*    If  the  size  of  it  is  to  be  suited  only  to  plays 
of   short   casts   then   your  choice  of  productions   will 
be    seriously    limited.    But  if  you  enlarge 
the  company  you  must  keep  members  of  it    Practical 
idle  perhaps   for  weeks  at  a  stretch;  and,    difficulties 
apart  from  all  other  objections,  good  actors    ♦< practical" 
will  not  stay  with  you  to  be  kept  idle.  You    manage- 
may    adopt    the    "practical"    compromise    ments 
of    calculating    the    size     of    your     com- 
pany by  the  length  of  an  average  cast  and  trusting  to 
special  engagements  to  fill  the  gaps  that  a  larger  cast 
would  show.    But  in  the  first  place  you  will  be  lucky, 
indeed,  to  find  good  actors  waiting  on  a  rank  like  cabs, 
ready  for  long  rehearsals  and  a  short  run  (in  any  case 
a  most  thriftless  way  of  engaging  them);  and  in  the 
second  a  revival  of  the  particular  play  would  be  very 
difficult,  for  you  could  not  expect  to  make  the  same 
special  engagements  over  again,  and  a  second  posse  of 
strange   actors   would  mean   rehearsing  de  novo.     In 
practice  the  solution  of  this  problem  is  evaded  by  the 
avoidance  of  plays  that  involve  this  difficulty.    But  a 
policy  which  dictates  the  avoidance  of  good  plays  is 
a  pretty  poor  policy. 

Then  arises  the  question:  how  short  are  the  short 
runs  to  be,  and  are  they  all  to  be  equally  short?  Much 
hinges  on  the  answer.  The  length  of  a  run  must  be 
settled  beforehand.  At  least  if  that  is  not  a  rule  made 
to  be  only  very  occasionally  broken,  if  the  plan  is 
simply  to  be  one  of  taking  off  the  failures  and  letting 
the  successes  run  on,  what  management  will  be  so 

*  This  "inevitably"  may  be  disputed.  Well,  one  could  plan,  no 
doubt,  to  furnish  a  theatre  with  rapid  relays  of  productions,  each 
one  cast  ad  hoc.  But  the  effort,  the  friction,  the  waste  of  time, 
energy,  and  money  would  be  so  stupendous  that  it  is  hard  to  see 
how  such  a  scheme  could  endure.  It  would,  exhaustedly,  adapt 
itself  before  long  to  long  runs  or  short  runs,  or  to  the  touring  system, 
or  to  any  other  that  showed  some  consideration  for  human  fatigue. 


248        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

consistently  strong-minded  as  ever  to  limit  the  tide  of 
success  once  it  is  flowing?  And  a  course  of  sliort 
runs  would  come  to  mean  that  the  theatre  was  in- 
voluntarily specializing  in  failure. 

The  outsider  may  say  that  a  management  with  a 
well  mobilized  audience  should,  after  a  while,  be  able 
to  guess  pretty  well  the  amount  of  attraction  each 
play  could  be  trusted  to  exercise.  On  the  contrary,  the 
more  experienced  a  manager  the  readier  he  will  be  to 
own  that  he  can't.  And  it  comes  in  practice  to  his 
trying  to  strike  a  safe  average  run  which  will  not  expose 
his  failures  to  too  many  empty  houses,  nor  cheat  his 
successes  of  too  many  full  ones.  Further,  as  he  must 
be  tenderer  towards  his  failures  than  towards  the 
robuster  success  which,  cut  back  in  its  prime,  can  be 
trusted  to  shoot  up  as  strongly  in  a  timely  revival,  he 
will  rather  set  out  to  precognize  a  run  that's  too  short 
than  one  that's  too  long.  And  so  it  happens  that  in 
this  sort  of  theatre  the  preference  has  been  mainly  for 
a  fortnight's,  even  for  a  week's,  spell  of  performances.* 

Here  we  touch  an  ineradicable  weakness.  If  you  are 
to  change  your  bill  so  often,  your  productions  must  be 
scrambled  and  your  actors  shamefully  overworked. 
The  old  stock  company's  way  out  of  this  difficulty  was 

*  At  the  Court  Theatre,  1904-1907,  it  is  true  that  while  short 
runs  —  that  is,  runs  of  a  length  settled  beforehand  —  were  the 
rule  they  were  varied  in  length,  and  there  was  never,  I  think,  a 
weekly  change  of  bill.  But  it  is  the  one  short-run  experiment  I 
know  of  in  the  West  End  of  London,  where  there  is  a  larger  potential 
intake  of  audience,  both  mobilized  and  casual,  than  anywhere  else 
(except,  of  course,  in  New  York).  And  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  evening  bills  were  almost  exclusively  drawn  from  the  plays  of 
Bernard  Shaw,  whose  settled  popularity  was  exceptional.  Even 
with  this,  though  —  and  an  experimental  matinee  test  to  help  one 
as  well  —  good  guessing  was  not  easy.  The  Birmingham  Keper- 
tory  Theatre,  I  believe,  with  its  mobilized  audience  steadily  in- 
creasing, finds  it  possible  to  increase  also  the  settled  number  of 
performances  of  a  play.  But  the  more  these  are  injcreased  the 
heavier  does  the  penalty  of  miscalculation  become. 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  249 

to  hand  to  the  actor,  a  while  before  the  season  began, 
a  Hst  of  the  parts  he  would  play.  With  most  he'd  be 
familiar,  for  old  plays  made  up  about  eighty  per  cent. 
(jf  the  programmes  in  those  days.  And  the  usual  atten- 
tion given  to  a  new  one  can  be  gathered  from  the  letters 
and  memoirs  of  many  an  infuriated  author.  To-day, 
with  matinees  to  consider,  a  fortnight  yields  not  more 
than  ten  rehearsal  days,  ludicrously  insufficient  (with  the 
laugh  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  producer's  mouth)  for  any 
play,  old  or  new,  if  the  time  is  to  be  used  for  anything  like 
collective  study.  In  stock  company  days  it  w\as  the  ne- 
cessity of  doing  the  job  in  about  half  the  time  that  brought 
into  being  the  curious  technique  of  acting  (misnamed  tra- 
dition) more  suited  to  dancing  the  lancers  (which,  indeed, 
it  much  resembled)  than  to  the  interpretation  of  a  play. 
There  is,  it  is  true,  one  method  by  which  plays  —  new 
or  old  —  can  be  produced  under  these  conditions.  The 
principal  performer  will  be  the  prompter. 
The  actor's  study  of  his  part  will  be  the  ^^^^J^^^ 
getting  of  a  rough  idea  of  the  character  difficulty 
and  deciding  what  are  to  be  its  salient 
characteristics.  The  company  will  walk  through  the 
play  once  or  twice,  marking  in  their  books  where  they 
come  on  and  go  off  and  their  whereabouts  on  the  stage 
at  stated  times.  And  that  will  be  all.  At  the  perform- 
ance they  will  stand  peeping  at  a  door  till  the  prompter 
from  his  central  box  beckons  them  on.  The  prompter 
will  read  the  words  sotto  voce,  they  will  repeat  them 
loudly  after  him;  he  can  signal  them  if  need  be  to  their 
places,  pantomime  their  business;  and,  relieved  of  all 
such  responsibilities  of  memory  they  can  fling  them- 
selves into  expressing  the  spirit  of  their  part.  If  plays 
must  be  produced  under  such  conditions  this  is,  per- 
haps, the  best  plan.  It  may  be  in  any  case  the  best.  It 
may  be  that  we  make  altogether  too  much  fuss  and 
take  too  much  trouble  over  the  job.  Can  we  get  all 
that  is  worth  getting  out  of  dramatic  art  by  leaving  it 


250         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

at  the  level  of  a  living  Punch  and  Judy?  Possibly  we 
can,  in  which  case  this  book  need  not  have  been  written. 

It  must  be  remembered,  too,  by  people  who  wonder 
why  we  cannot  restore  the  old  stock  companies  to  their 
prosperity  that  modern  plays  cannot  so  easily  be  stereo- 
typed in  casting  or  staging  as  could  the  old.*  A  return 
to  the  first  phase  of  the  "star"  system,  by  which  cer- 
tain eminent  performers  would  go  visiting  with  such 
parts  in  their  heads  as  Undershaft  in  "Major  Barbara," 
Anthony  in  "Strife,"  John  Gabriel  Borkman,  and  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  while  the  resident  company  crammed  the 
rest  of  the  play  into  theirs,  and  themselves  as  best  they 
could  into  the  parts  that  remained ;  the  whole  then  being 
subjected  to  a  recognized  ritual  of  production  —  this 
is  possible,  no  doubt,  but  hardly  desirable.  Better 
see  the  plays  under  such  conditions,  one  might  say, 
than  not  see  them  at  all.  But  modern  plays  are  not 
generally  remarkable  for  the  bravura  passages  which 
were  the  strength  of  the  old.  They  accord  ill  with  the 
unyielding  egoism  of  a  star  player  who  treats  his  part  as  a 
personal  possession,  while  the  rest  move  tentatively  round 
him,  protesting  or  apologetic,  disguising  as  best  they  may 
their  strangerhood.  One  disinherits  a  modern  play  of  its 
privileges  of  commonwealth  at  a  performance's  peril. 

And  in  what  selection  of  modern  parts  a  "juvenile," 
or  a  "heavy  lead,"  or  a  "first  old  man"  would  set  out 

*  Though  the  old  plays  were  stereotyped  in  their  acting  it  does 
not  follow,  however,  that  they  should  have  been.  And  a  queer 
consequence  followed.  The  stock  companies,  composed  of  necessity 
of  actors  following  "lines"  of  parts  —  juveniles,  heavies,  first  old 
men  and  women,  ingenues,  soubrettcs  (there  was  even  a  curious 
creature  called  a  "singing  chambermaid")  —  were,  almost  equally 
of  necessity,  so  catered  for  l)y  playwrights  anxious  for  production. 
Hence  arose  a  drama  with  characters  drawn,  not  from  life,  but 
from  the  resources  of  tliis  Noah's  Ark.  Carefree,  Charles,  his 
friend.  Alderman  Glutwell,  Mrs.  Glutwell,  Angelina,  their  daughter, 
Sopliia,  her  cousin,  Maria,  her  maid,  Toby  Taproom,  an  apprentice. 
It  was  a  convention,  like  any  other,  grown  to  a  tradition,  llobert- 
son  broke  it.    I  think  we  cannot  seriously  mourn  its  loss. 


J 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  251 

to  equip  himself  in  the  hope  of  an  engagement  is  almost 
beyond  discovery. 

The  short-run  theatre  is  in  fact  a  short-sighted,  if 
lieroically  meant,  attempt  to  provide  for  the  new  drama 
by  the  old  methods  which  the  new  drama 
itself  rendered  obsolete;  an  attempt,  there-       ^^*^ 
fore,  logically  foredoomed  to  failure.     And       "^^^^^^ 
if  the   logic   of   the    situation    cannot    con-      drama 
vince  us,  it  is  open  to  anyone's  observation 
that  each  step  the  drama  takes  towards  a  finer  artistic 
freedom  makes  the  task  of  the  new  stock  company  — 
for  all  its  good  will  and  for  all  its  disguising  as  reper- 
tory —  more  hopelessly  difficult. 

Does  this  seem  a  needlessly  virulent  attack  upon 
workers  in  a  good  cause.?  A  called-for  blow  on  their 
side,  rather;  for  they  cannot  bite  the  hand  that  feeds 
them,  and  it  is,  of  course,  the  financial  feeding  that  is 
most  often  at  fault.  Of  all  the  stupidities  that  pervade 
the  theatre  financial  stupidities  are  the  worst  and  really 
the  least  excusable.  In  London  and  New  York  more 
money  is  thrown  away  in  a  year  in  theatrical  specu- 
lation and  extravagance  than  would  suffice  to  endow  half 
a  dozen  genuine  theatres.  That  is  a  truism.  A  truth, 
though,  that  still  needs  enforcing  is  that  most  of  this 
money  goes  in  things  quite  inessential  to  plays  and  their 
acting :  profitrentals,  advertisement, "  library  "  *  commis- 
sions, inordinate  taxes,  licence  fees,  water  rates.  Even  as 
an  industry  it  is  neither  well  treated  nor  self  respecting,  f 

*  In  English  theatrical  parlance  a  "library"  is  an  outside  book- 
ing-ofBce.    What  a  target  for  scorn  in  the  phrase ! 

t  As  an  instance  of  its  ill-treatment  one  may  quote  the  conduct 
of  the  London  Water  Board,  who,  to  make  up  a  deficit  in  their 
budget,  imposed  on  the  theatres  rates  which  they  did  not  even 
pretend  were  equitable,  on  the  ground  that  the  theatres  could  afford 
to  pay.  The  fairness  of  the  present  Entertainment  Tax  may  be 
disputable.  But  lack  of  industrial  self-respect  is  evident  in  the 
balance  sheets  of  nine  out  of  every  ten  theatrical  enterprises.  Quo- 
tation would  take  us  too  far. 


252  THE   EXEMPLARY   THEATRE 

But  an  industry  it  is,  with  its  practice  and  ever 
growing  precedent;  and  a  paying  industry,  or  people 
would  not  meddle  with  it.  Bring  a  scheme, 
The  good  then,  for  the  establishment  of  a  genuine 
business  theatre  before  any  average  body  of  busi- 
^jjg  ness  men,  and  by  instinct  they  consider  it 

theatre  in  the   light  of   the  dominating   industrial 

conditions,  for  all  that  these  may  be  de- 
monstrably both  the  fruit  and  the  root  of  insensate 
extravagance.  And  they  cover  their  ignorance  by  such 
commercial  platitudes  as  "The  theatre  must  be  eco- 
nomically managed."  Excellent.  But  outline  to  them 
the  genuine  economy  of  a  genuine  theatre  and  they 
stare.  "That  needs  a  great  deal  of  capital.  The 
return  will  be  slow,  but  will  it  be  certain?  Why  not 
a  simpler  scheme,  a  more  modest  beginning?"  Their 
minds  are  by  this  time  havering  uneasily  from  the 
theatre  as  a  gay  speculation  to  some  glorified  reminis- 
cence of  their  own  back-drawing-room  experience.  If 
it  were  a  factory  *  they  meant  to  build  they  would 
realize  easily  enough  that  money  must  be  spent  on 
equipment,  on  experience  even,  not  to  be  returnable  in 
a  year  or  so.  And  the  theatre,  a  higher  organism  than 
the  factory,  needs  more  liberal  consideration,  not  less. 
If  the  enterprise  is  to  be  public-spirited  then  the  good 
business  man  will  opine  that  while,  of  course,  it  must 
not  be  expected  to  pay  in  any  commercial  sense  (cent, 
per  cent.,  or  total  loss,  he  will  mean  by  that)  it  should, 
to  justify  its  existence,  be  made  to  "pay  its  way."  But 
that  does  not  take  us  very  much  further,  for  it  is  its 
way  that  is  in  question.  There  are,  of  course,  many 
very  uncommercial  ways  of  paying.  It  would  be  incon- 
venient, perhaps,  to  make  a  theatre  as  free  to  the  pub- 
lic as  is  a  picture  gallery  or  a  museum.  Theatres  are 
not  places    (even   if  galleries  are)    into   which   people 

*  But  even  in  factories  nowadays  we  are  told  that  it  pays  to 
consider  the  human  factor.    Why  ever  suppose  that  it  would  n't? 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  253 

should  be  encouraged  to  wander  idly.  But  suppose 
performances  at  twopence,  fourpence,  and  sixpence  a 
head,  which,  though  crowded  to  the  doors,  would  still 
stand  very  thinly  on  the  credit  side  of  a  balance  sheet 

—  would  this  justify  the  existence  of  a  public-spirited 
enterprise?  Or,  again,  if  we  put  the  value  of  dramatic 
art  before  public  entertainment,  is  it  better  to  per- 
form a  good  play  to  a  half-filled  house  than  a  worse 
play  to  an  overflowing  one,  and,  if  so,  why  not  a 
better  play  still  to  a  house  quite  empty?  Are 
plays  alwaj^s  —  or  ever  —  to  be  judged  by  their  im- 
mediate appeal?  And  if  the  theatre  is  a  public- 
spirited  enterprise  what  claim  has  a  minority  audi- 
ence to  consideration? 

These  questions  may  be  academic  and  may  seem 
foolish.  But  it  is  only  by  answering  them  and  their 
kin,  and  by  analyzing  his  own  answers,  that  the  good 
business  man  will  be  brought  to  a  reasoning,  if  not  rea- 
sonable, attitude  towards  an  attempt  at  the  founding  of 
a  genuine  theatre.  And  if  its  promoter  does  not  at  this 
stage  push  controversy  hard  he  must  not  grumble 
later  if,  when  his  first  streak  of  luck  fails  him  (and  most 
of  these  schemes  have,  at  least,  a  short  attack  of  success 

—  a  sort  of  measles),  he  fails.  Though  there  will 
follow  from  this  a  worse  result,  at  which  we  may  all 
most  legitimately  grumble.  For  from  every  such  fail- 
ure the  whole  cause  of  the  theatre  suffers.  And  a  pro- 
moter may  rightly  argue,  as  he  fights  for  conditions  or 
against  the  misunderstanding  of  his  aims,  that  far  more 
is  involved  than  his  personal  success  or  the  prosperity 
of  a  single  enterprise. 

The  one  thing  needful  to  begin  with  is  that  everyone 
concerned  should  agree  upon  what  it  is  they  are  up  to. 
No  one  will  propose  to  give  art  a  free  hand  and  a  Fortu- 
natus'  purse  to  dip  into.  Whether  they  ought  to  may 
be  a  question,  though  it  is  a  good  case  to  argue  that 
artistic  self-sufficiency  would,  in  the  long  run,  do  little 


254         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

but  harm.  And  no  one,  presumably,  will  suggest  that 
such  a  theatre's  success  should  be  judged  merely  by 
its  money-making  powers.  Crowded  houses  are  exhil- 
arating, but  the  cause  of  the  crowding  must  be  any 
management's  concern.  What  is  wanted  is  a  deter- 
minant. 

This  can  be  found,  it  would  seem,  in  the  audience 
—  that  essential  part  even  of  the  artistic  completion 

of  a  play.  But  bj'^  no  means  in  the  hap- 
,  ^®  hazard  collection  of  people  that  we  now 

audience         describe  by  the  term.     If  the  audience  is 

a  completing  part  of  the  play's  perform- 
ance obviously  its  quality  and  its  constitution  matter. 
As  well,  almost,  cast  a  play  haphazard  as  suppose  that 
anyone  dropping  in  can,  by  virtue  of  paying  half  a 
crown  or  half  a  sovereign,  carry  through  his  passive  part 
of  the  performance  with  credit.  There  is  an  art  of 
listening.  Five  minutes'  test  will  distinguish  a  good 
audience  from  a  bad  one;  and  numbers  have  nothing  to 
do  with  it.  Now  instinctively  we  write  our  plays  and 
plan  our  productions  with  an  eye  to  a  perfect  audience. 
Or,  let  us  say  that  we  should;  for  it's  obvious  that  to 
do  a  thing  less  finely  than  you  can  do  it  for  fear  of 
misunderstanding  is  a  fault  in  art.  Therefore,  not  the 
least  of  the  tasks  of  any  theatre  is  to  develop  out  of  the 
haphazard,  cash-yielding  crowd  a  body  of  opinion  that 
will  be  sensitive,  appreciative,  and  critical.  And  when 
such  an  audience  has  been  formed  it  can  be  regarded  as 
an  integral,  if  a  not  too  rigidly  calculable,  part  of  the 
theatre's  constitution.  Certainly  a  manager  must  lead 
his  public's  opinion,  and  not  look  to  be  able  to  follow 
it.  He  had  better,  indeed,  force  the  pace  at  times;  go 
boldly  ahead  with  l)iit  a  few  to  follow  him,  leaving  the 
laggards  to  catch  up  as  they  can,  even  at  the  risk  of 
having  to  stop  and  wait,  or  at  the  peril  of  taking  a 
wrong  path.  It  would  be  possible,  of  course,  so  to 
organize  an  audience  that  they  could  make  positive 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  ^55 

choice  of  plays  and  the  Hke;  but  inadvisable.  The  busi- 
ness of  a  government  is  to  govern,  and  no  manager 
should  let  himself  be  robbed  of  his  initiative:  it  is  the 
touchstone  for  all  his  other  qualities.  Besides,  this 
audience,  the  constituency  of  his  appeal,  need  not  be 
thought  of  under  a  single  aspect.  It  will  show  divisions 
of  taste  more  or  less  constant,  definitely  attributable 
sometimes  to  the  various  sections  of  the  community  for 
which  it  is  the  theatre's  duty  to  cater,  such  as  schools, 
bodies  of  teachers,  and  students,  or  societies  interested 
in  drama  from  one  point  of  view  and  another.  But  even 
as  a  whole  —  and,  perhaps,  better  as  a  whole  —  such 
an  integrated  public  can  act  as  a  determinant.  One 
supposes,  be  it  noted,  a  theatre  doing  such  a  quantity 
and  variety  of  work  that  a  confirmed  playgoer  may  find 
fairly  full  satisfaction  in  his  attendance  there.  The 
theatre,  in  fact,  by  its  policy  must  look  to  form  its 
audience's  taste,  but  after  that  need  not  be  ashamed  to 
regard  it  as  a  guide. 

And  as  a  determinant  such  a  public  should  surely 
content  the  good  business  man  engaged  in  an  enterprise 
of  public  spirit.  He  will  not  have  genius  rampant  and 
irresponsible,  with  nothing  less  mighty  than  the  uni- 
verse to  appeal  to.  He  will  not  expect  the  easiest 
entertainment  of  the  greatest  number  to  be  his  theatre's 
aim.  But  upon  the  basis  of  an  integrated  audience  he 
can  budget. 

The  budgeting  will  always  be  a  tiresome  business, 
and  for  some  time  must  be  a  very  chanceful  one  as 
well.    It  is  a  great  drawback  to  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking theatre  that,  while  its  art  has  ®  °^^ 
been  to  some  small  degree  fostered,  hardly        budget 
any    practical    knowledge    of    its    proper 
economy  exists  —  economy  here  meaning  housekeep- 
ing, and  not  more  of  a  tyranny  than  a  good  housekeeper 
needs  to  exercise.    It  has  always  been  so  much  easier  to 
apply   the   recognized   commercial   standards   and  — 


256        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

these  again  being  so  hopelessly  vitiated  by  association 
with  the  speculative  theatre  that  they  offended  one's 
every  purpose  —  to  salt  them  with  altruism;  to  say.  for 
instance,  to  the  well-meaning  manager:  "Go  ahead, 
and  you  may  lose  on  your  classical  swings  just  what  you 
can  make  on  your  popular  roundabouts." 

But  this  is  an  even  more  vicious  method.  Wliy 
should  a  self-respecting  roundabout  do  more  than  sup- 
port itself.?^  Oh,  but  if  it  does  n't  the  swings  are  to 
be  starved;  and  they  will  grow  more  than  ever  exig- 
uously  and  forbiddingly  classical.  Then,  as  a  remedy, 
are  we  to  make  the  roundabouts  more  popular  still  .^^ 
Such  a  lazy-minded  policy  leads  one  deservedly  into 
muddle  and  loss,  and  one  returns  to  the  brutal  direct- 
ness of  commercialism  with  relief. 

Nor  can  one  save  trouble  by  laying  down  golden 
rules.  They  are  to  be  rattled  off  by  the  dozen;  all 
excellent,  and  not  one  that  cannot  be  dangerously 
misinterpreted.  It  is  simple,  and  true  enough  to  be 
worth  saying,  that  a  theatre,  if  it  is  to  do  public  ser- 
vice, should  be  given  the  freedom  of  the  city,  released 
from  rent,  rates,  taxes,  the  cost  of  light  and  police  and 
the  necessity  of  advertising.  These  things  the  public 
should  be  ready,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  lose  if  they 
are  to  profit  by  the  theatre.  It  is  worth  noting  that  the 
smaller  the  scope  of  a  theatre's  work  and  the  shorter  the 
time  the  estimates  cover,  the  greater  will  be  every  cost 
in  proportion.  And  it  follows  that  every  limitation  of 
necessary  equipment  is  an  extravagance,  not  an  econ- 
omy; and  every  expenditure  upon  temporary  needs 
equally  an  extravagance.  If  there  is  money  to  burn  at 
first,  and  you  accumulate  a  large  store  of  scenery  and 
clothes;  a  little  later,  their  effective  appeal  to  your 
public  having  been  made,  you  arc  left  with  the  obliga- 
tion to  go  on  using  them;  and  this  will  loll  probably 
at  the  very  moment  when  that  backwash  of  enthusiasm 
comes,  from  which  all  such  enterprises  suffer,  and  when 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  257 

you'll  be  needing,  above  all  things,  to  set  free  inven- 
tiveness and  fresh  ideas.  One  lays  up  this  sort  of 
treasure  only  to  wish  that  moth  and  rust  would  corrupt 
it  sooner. 

But  there  is  one  rule  which,  if  not  pure  gold,  has  at 
least  been  tried  in  many  fires.  Always  from  the  begin- 
ning pay  the  market  rate  for  everything  and  everybody, 
and  if  by  good  luck  you  get  anything  cheaper,  write 
down  the  difference  in  pencil  on  the  debit  side  of  your 
accounts.  For  the  deadly  backwash  of  that  first  wave 
of  enthusiasm  sweeps  in  among  workers  as  well.  If  it 
were  only  the  individual  that  had  to  keep  himself  up 
to  the  mark!  But  the  collective  courage  of  a  theatre 
is  a  very  uncontrollable  thing,  and  if,  at  an  unexpected 
and  difficult  moment,  it  may  be  sapped  by  a  loss  of 
energy,  which  for  some  reason  is  no  longer  to  be  given 
for  nothing,  but  for  which  there  is  no  proper  provision 
of  pay,  from  that  moment,  perhaps,  disintegration  will 
begin,  unobserved.  And  most  likely  it  will  not  be 
observed  until  too  late  to  check  it.  Vice  versa,  sell 
nothing  under  the  market  rate;  or,  if  you  do,  see  that 
the  buyer  suitably  acknowledges  the  bonus,  and  that 
somebody  pays  the  full  price  and  knows  what  they  are 
paying  for.  No  complimentary  seats  should  be  allowed 
unless  the  cost  of  each  compliment  is  written  plainly 
somewhere.  No  privileges  to  patrons  and  guarantors 
and  the  like.  If  they  want  special  seats  for  first  per- 
formances with  their  monograms  worked  on  the  back, 
let  them  be  paid  for,  in  one  way  or  another,  at  the  right 
rate;  and  a  little  extra  for  the  monogram  would  not 
come  amiss.  More  enterprises  have  been  ruined  for  the 
petty  convenience  of  their  avowed  supporters  than 
all  the  hard  words  of  their  true  critics  could  stimulate 
to  success. 

But  confront  a  manager  with  his  theatre  and  its 
problems  in  the  concrete;  and  now  he  will  be  wise  to 
build  the  pyramid  of  his  policy  from  the  bottom  up. 


258         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

ideals  at  the  top,  the  base  of  expedients  tested  and 
tried.      He   must  know  first  what  he  wants  to  do;  he 

should  be  allowed  time  and  some  money 

,      for  sheer  experiment;  but,  above   all,  he 

oolicv  should  ask  patience  from  his  supporters 

and  authorities  while  he  assembles  his  re- 
sources stone  by  stone.  He  will  be  wise  if  he  makes  neither 
attempt  nor  promise  to  bring  the  theatre  to  normal 
running  conditions  in  less  than  three  years.  He  should 
see  that  every  experience  is  made  illustrative.  Let  the 
theatre  be  set  its  various  tasks.  He  can  size  up  the 
gross  cost  of  each  with  some  accuracy  and,  at  a  guess, 
the  likely  return.  Prize  plays  and  their  like  should 
have  special  funds  set  apart  for  them.  A  play  which 
is  being  studied  that  term  in  the  city's  scliools  must 
certainly  be  performed  in  the  theatre.  Very  well,  put 
the  gross  cost  on  one  side.  Whether  the  children  see 
it  free  or  at  sixpence  a  head,  and  how  the  account  is 
balanced  (balanced  it  must  be),  is  a  matter  of  conven- 
ience. But  the  incidence  must  be  made  clear  to  every- 
one concerned. 

The  theatre's  main  task  is,  of  course,  to  stand  as 
drama's   representative   with    its    audience.      Now    a 

library  —  to  which  we  have  compared  our 
A  Shakes-  repertory  of  plays  —  does  not  buy  one 
parenthesis     book    here    and    there    by    a    recognized 

author:  it  has  their  works  on  its  shelves. 
The  theatre  moves  more  slowly  and  under  obvious 
disabilities,  but  the  parallel  should  hold.  The  whole 
canon  of  Shakespeare,  for  instance,  should  be  brought 
by  degrees  into  the  repertory,  certainly  of  any 
purely  English  theatre.  And  if  parts  of  it  cannot  hold 
a  place  there  on  their  merits  we  may  debit  some  of 
that  loss,  at  least,  to  the  literary  fetichism  by  which 
a  frank  unck'rstanding  of  the  playwright  has  been 
obscured.  But  the  gain  from  the  rest  when  it  accrues 
will  probably  bid  fair  to  surprise  those  good  people 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  259 

who  accept  the  national  poet  as  they  accept  other 
national  monuments  —  St.  Paul's,  the  Abbey,  the  Col- 
umn in  Trafalgar  Square,  shrines  to  be  passed  unnoticed 
on  three  hundred  and  sixty-four  days  in  the  year,  to 
be  livened  by  bunting  and  liturgy  upon  patriotic  occa- 
sions. Nelson,  the  man  of  deeds,  and  his  peers  in  the 
great  city  crypt  or  under  the  transepts  at  Westminster 
pass  into  the  shadows  of  history,  but  Shakespeare,  the 
man  of  mere  words,  does  not.  Statueless,  unrecorded, 
what  they  were  and  did  and  the  meaning  of  it  would 
be  lost  in  our  barren  ingratitude.  But  it  is  utterly 
right  that  we  should  know  next  to  nothing  of  Shakes- 
peare himself,  and  the  mild  curse  of  wasted  time  is 
upon  him  who  tries  to  rearticulate  those  bones.  And 
it  is  entirely  appropriate  that  a  silly  posed  statue, 
surrounded  by  music-halls,  should  be  the  only  attempt 
of  the  sort  to  memorialize  his  fame.  On  the  day  that 
the  nation  he  has  honoured  thinks  to  satisfy  its  con- 
science by  decreeing  some  magnificent  mass  of  marble 
to  his  name  we  may  fear,  indeed,  that  his  gift  to  them 
is  finally  buried  beneath  it.  We  still  hardly  guess  at 
the  gift's  value.  How  can  we  till  we  accept  it?  Pro- 
moters of  Shakespeare  theatres  dutifully  exploit  their 
possibilities.  Certainly  it  is  our  duty  to  provide  a  home 
for  the  plays.  Most  certainly  that  alone  will  be  his 
fitting  memorial.  But  wait  till  these  good  memorialists 
have  turned  their  backs  upon  the  opening  ceremony 
with  a  sigh  of  relief  and  a  human  resolve  —  after  all  the 
squabbles  and  intrigues  which  wearily  accompany  the 
collective  doing  of  such  good  deeds  —  never  to  go 
near  the  place  again.  That  will  be  Shakespeare's 
chance,  his  moment,  which  will  last  as  long  as  the 
England  lasts  which  his  light  illumined.  It  will  not  be 
for  all  time.  His  meridian  may  have  passed  already. 
Perhaps  we  have  delayed  too  long;  history  does  not 
bear  out  our  cheery  optimism  of  its  being  never  too 
late  to  do  anything.    Already  a  tithe  of  his  phrases, 


260        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

the  little  things  that  made  hini  laugh,  many  turns  of 
his  thought,  are  strange  to  us.  But  that  is  no  great 
matter.  ,  His  spirit  flashed  upon  the  sky  reflections 
of  an  age  which  was  big  with  the  future  of  our  race.  Is 
it  still  in  the  fulfilling.?  How  long  before  the  travaillers 
feel  within  themselves  the  joys  and  burdens  that  the 
prophet's  soul  foreknows?  Poets,  it  is  certain,  come  to 
their  own  at  no  accountable  time.  But,  seeing  that  the 
history  of  these  three  hundred  years  shows  the  com- 
mon people  that  Shakespeare  sprang  from,  and  despised 
more  than  a  little,  moving  doubtfully  and  painfully  — 
slipshod,  stupid,  helpless,  heroic,  passionate  always  for 
something  better  than  they  know  and  better  than 
they  are  —  towards  the  heritage  of  their  being  that 
his  genius  seized  and  showed  is  it  not  very  likely  that 
these  English  may  find  now,  at  this  expansive  moment 
of  their  career,  as  never  before  they  could  have  found, 
in  the  pageant  of  his  work  a  picture,  vivid  and  inform- 
ing, of  their  master-meaning  to  the  world  .'^ 

Theorizing  is  vain:  one  can  but  bring  the  matter 
to  the  proof  and,  even  so,  not  beyond  argument.  But 
let  us  be  clear  that  upon  the  last  three  generations  at 
least  the  power  of  Shakespeare  the  playwright  has 
never  been  proved.  Needless  to  say  that  reading  his 
plays  in  school  is  not  the  way  to  do  it,  nor  even  is  taking 
the  children  to  see,  as  a  treat  now  and  then,  a  little 
selection  of  them  acted.  Only  when  they  arc  there  to 
be  picked  out  as  a  man  picks  up  popular  tunes  —  hear- 
ing the  lot,  whistling  those  that  appeal  to  him  time 
and  again,  letting  slip  those  that  don't  —  shall  we  know 
what  real  hold  tliey  have.  A  tradition  of  their  acting, 
generally  accepted  in  its  essentials,*    must  first  be  re- 

*  Not  in  the  detail  of  eostume  or  scenery,  but  in  the  broad 
metliod  of  playing  and  staging,  yes.  Our  so-called  Shakespearean 
traditions  of  to-day,  it  must  he  reinemhcrcd.  date,  the  most  vener- 
uhlc  of  them,  from  no  earlier  than  the  eightcenlli  century,  an  age  of 
some  great  actors,  of  much  well-polished  playiiig,  but,  if  wc  may 


I 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  261 

created.  For  if  it  is  our  inbred  selves  that  are  to 
answer  to  their  call  familiarity  with  the  sight  and  the 
sound  of  them  must  be  unquestioned,  almost  uncon- 
scious. Acceptance  of  tradition  will  leave  room,  more- 
over, for  an  ampler  critical  pleasure  in  the  play's  inter- 
pretation. Shakespeare  a  national  heritage !  The  patri- 
mony seems  divided  to-day  between  schoolmasters, 
writers  who  find  that  his  phrases  flow  easily  —  too 
easily  —  down  their  pens,  and  orators  upon  ornamen- 
tal occasions.  To  the  rest  of  us  —  among  whom  we 
may  number  some  thirty-five  millions  of  uncultured 
rich  and  poor  —  he  is  a  name,  a  memory  of  lessons, 
an  occasional  treat  to  the  play,  or  a  peg  for  a  good 
resolution  —  *'I  really  will  read  'As  You  Like  It'  to 

judge  by  its  treatment  of  the  texts,  of  a  complete  misunderstanding 
of  the  Elizabethan  drama.  It  was  generally  held,  then,  that  all 
tragic  acting  should  be  statuesque  —  witness  the  sensation  caused 
by  the  revolutionary  irruptions  of  Garrick  and  (later)  of  Kean. 
The  imperfect  artificial  lighting  which  superseded  the  daylight  of 
the  early  seventeenth-century  stage  may  have  had  something  to  do 
with  the  growth  of  this  "classic"  tradition.  For  the  actor  —  the 
leading  actor  especially  —  valuing  the  effect  of  his  facial  expression, 
naturally  tried  to  keep  himself  anchored  "in  the  focus"  as  it  was 
called,  where  his  audience  could  best  see  him.  The  influence  of  the 
French  theatre  counted  for  something,  too.  But  from  whatever 
cause  the  eighteenth-century  players  of  Shakespeare  did  slow  down 
the  verse  and  over-ballast  the  action,  and  bring  to  the  whole  busi- 
ness a  general  heaviness  of  method  from  which  we  have  not  yet 
broken  free.  We  still  suffer  beneath  the  meaningless  oppression  of 
the  bass  Claudius  and  contralto  Gertrude,  brass-bound  effigies,  a 
tonweight  on  our  chests.  Mrs.  Siddons,  for  all  her  genius  and  with 
much  authority,  so  distorted  Lady  Macbeth  from  the  subtle  femi- 
nine enchantress  of  Shakespeare's  fancy  (not  less  an  enchantress 
but  more  because  it  was  her  husband  she  held  in  her  toUs)  into  the 
clarion-noted  matron  that  weakling  shadows  of  her  great  presence 
haunt  us  still.  Though  the  true  tradition  be  lost,  this  is  obviously 
a  false  one,  and  the  problem  is  how  to  recreate  a  valid  succession 
from  the  internal  evidence  of  the  plays  themselves,  with  the  help, 
perhaps,  of  such  glimpses  of  the  psj'chology  of  both  Elizabethan 
actors  and  audience  as  we  can  gain.  Here  is,  as  we  know,  matter 
for  much  dispute,  but  for  very  good  fun. 


262        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

the  children!"  But  in  all  peoples,  and  not  least  in  the 
English,  there  is  unmined  wealth  of  passion  and  humour 
and  love  of  beauty.  It  may  lie  so  near  the  surface  as 
to  be  peeping  towards  expression,  and  a  scratching 
will  show  it.  And  perhaps  this  very  jolly  playwright 
—  divest  him  of  the  trappings  in  which  a  grudging 
idolatry  has  choked  him,  give  him  simply  what  he 
asks  of  us,  the  freedom  of  the  theatre  —  it  may  be 
that  even  across  the  space  of  three  centuries  he  can  do 
more  than  a  little  to  help  set  our  spirit  free.  The  dumb, 
the  deaf,  the  blind  —  no  census  numbers  them,  or 
notes  the  unhappiness  and  danger  that  must  lie  in  any 
nation  so  inarticulate  and  so  crippled. 

No  rhetorical  urging  will  be  needed,  perhaps,  to  en- 
force upon  any  public-spirited  theatre  the  all-obvious 

duty   of  representing  Shakespeare  to   its 

"^h®  audience.      But    more   is    implied.      The 

ea  re  s  theatre's  attitude  towards  its  great   dra- 

towards  the     ii^^^tist  should  be  its  attitude  towards  all 

drama  drama.     It  should  have  truck  with  none 

that  cannot  hope  to  be  admitted  —  how- 
ever distantly  —  into  this  view.  The  business  of  any 
true  theatre  is,  indeed  (the  simile  serves  yet  once 
again),  to  build  up  a  library  of  living  drama.  Now 
the  limitations  forced  upon  it  with  the  cost  and  com- 
plexity of  its  machinery,  not  felt  in  the  library  of 
books,  must  make  it  more  chary  rather  than  less  of 
being  cumbered  with  experimental  stuff.  This  is  no 
condemnation  to  unrelenting  solemnity.  If  a  manager 
cannot  make  bold  to  say  "That  tragedy  will  be  for- 
gotten to-morrow,  this  farce  will  live  for  a  century," 
he  is  not  fit  for  his  post.  But  it  docs  demand  some 
scheme  of  selection  which,  however  else  it  may  be 
evolved,  can  certainly  not  be  dictated  by  the  oppor- 
timism  of  a  vague  wish  to  please  anybody  and  every- 
body. Even  tlie  selected  audience  whose  judgment 
may  be  respected  will  only  form  itself  in  response  to 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  263 

a  programme.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  public 
taste.  The  democratic  world  of  culture  is,  but  for 
some  few  strongholds  of  purpose  and  hope,  lost  in  the 
anarchy  of  pleasure-seeking.  Haphazard  armies  of 
fashion  march  hither  and  thither  under  irresponsible 
and  unknown  leaders.  What  should  the  theatre  do 
here.''  It  can  only  exist  as  a  stronghold;  self-respect- 
ing, even  self-suflBcient,  single-minded.  Seek  out,  hat 
in  hand,  bowing  and  scraping  on  its  behalf,  that  per- 
sonified monster  the  Public,  and  what  does  one  get? 
Halfpence;  and,  more  deservedly,  kicks.  Coax  the 
monster  if  you  think  you  can  into  a  reasonable  and 
articulate  mood,  and  ask  —  not  what  he  wants,  for 
the  answer  is  "Find  out,"  and  many  have  been  the 
lives  wasted  at  that  task  —  but  ask  *'How  should 
this  theatre  of  yours  stand  for  the  drama?"  and  with 
the  utmost  reasonableness  he  will  reply  "Why  ask  me?^'' 
But,  politely  ignoring  him,  use  the  theatre  (it  will  be 
noted  how  the  phrase,  though  twisted  a  little,  flows  all 
too  easily  down  the  pen)  according  to  the  drama's  own 
honour  and  dignity,  and  he,  unmastered  a  little,  will 
soon  find  his  use  in  it,  if  pleasure  and  use  are  to  be 
found. 

A  director  can  find  tasks  enough.  There  is  the 
Shakespeare  canon,  there  is  eighteenth-century  comedy, 
there  is  now  not  one  school,  but  many,  of  English- 
spoken  drama.  There  are  the  French  and  Spanish, 
Italian,  German,  Scandinavian  schools,  all  w^orth  their 
place.  One  could  plan  out  with  ease  a  three  years' 
programme  —  leaving  spaces  for  plays  still  to  be  written 
—  which  should  have  a  consistent  purpose.  It  would 
not  be  an  especially  educational  programme,  in  the 
sense  that  plays  would  be  done  chronologically,  or 
according  to  any  other  inappropriately  logical  method. 
Nor  yet  should  it  be  arranged  as  an  elaborate  exhibi- 
tion of  drama;  not  as  anything  so  soulless.  Its  purpose 
should  be  the  articulation  of  a  body  of  plays  and  their 


264         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

acting  so  ordered  and  balanced  as  to  make  of  this 
theatre  a  living  thing.  The  peculiar  property  of  the 
dramatic  art  is  that,  by  virtue  of  its  human  constitu- 
ents, their  show  among  themselves,  and  our  close 
touch  with  them,  it  can  stand  as  a  symbol  of  that  larger 
life  of  sympathy  given  and  granted,  that  extension  of 
personal  power,  the  membership  one  with  another, 
which  is  civilization's  only  sure  achievement  up  to  now. 
First  has  come  realization  of  oneself;  then  follows  —  a 
far  and  for  long,  indeed,  a  feeble  cry  —  realization  of 
one's  neighbour:  this  art's  contribution  to  the  second 
effort,  being  her  childlike  hints  that  neighbour  and  self 
are  very  much  alike,  especially  neighbour. 

Therefore,  as  both  epitome  and  mirror  of  our  social 
life,  a  theatre's  first  task  is  to  realize  a  self,  compacted, 

as  a  man's  mind  is,  of  heritage  and  cir- 
The  cumstance.     Then,  without  fail,  a  spirit  will 

theatre's  inform  it.  And  so,  with  full  title,  it  may 
towards  ^'<^^Q  its  stand  as  a  living  unit  of  that 
itself  social  world   of  man's  creation  —  which  is, 

as  we  begin  to  know,  the  grouping  of 
groups  and  powers  as  much  as  of  individuals,  the 
complex  following  on  the  simple  —  its  full  task  being 
just  to  make  friends.  The  problem  of  this  enlargement 
of  the  laws  of  individual  association  to  a  comprehension 
of  groups  and  powers  is  admittedly  a  pressing  one  in 
these  times.  Why  are  mobs  blackguardly.'^  Why  do 
men  deteriorate  in  crowds?  Must  an  assemblage  be 
less  moral  than  the  individuals  that  compose  it?  Surely 
the  art  that  offers  to  eludicale  a  lillle  lliese  confusions 
cannot  be  a  negligible  one. 

And  the  practical  road  to  this  ideal  goal  should  as 
surely  j)lease  the  good  lousiness  man  if  he  wishes  to  travel 
in  that  direction  at  all.  For  he  may  first  know  where 
he  is  going,  and  at  any  point  he  can  stop.  If  the 
theatre  is  a  living  entity,  not  a  machine,  there 
need  be  no  iron  rules  for  the  construction  of  its  pro- 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  265 

gramme.      Give    a    sample    of    Euripides  —  Murray, 
a  cycle  of    Ibsen,    Gilbert's    two  early  farces,  Love 
for  Love,  The  Critic,  Le  Mala  de  Imagin- 
aire,  and  —  say  —  a  couple  more  from  Moli-  ^^ 

ere,  a  selection  of  Shaw,  of  Galsworthy,  of  plays 
Pinero,  a  Hankin  comedy,  Masefield's  The 
Faithful  and  The  Campden  Wonder,  one  or  two  of  the 
starkest  of  Barrie's  plays,  a  de  Musset,  a  Hauptmann,  a 
Terence  translated  by  Bridges,  a  Mystery  play,  something 
by  Heme,  two  or  three  by  the  younger  American  school,  a 
Browning,  something  by  Davies  or  Milne,  by  Brieux, 
Echagaray,  Scribe,  Sardou,  Giacosa,  Benevente  or 
Sierra,  Tchekov  (if  you  dare),  Holberg,  d'Annunzio, 
and  pick  another  half-dozen  English  names  from  the 
good  round  dozen  you  can  find,  not  to  mention  Shakes- 
peare —  for  one  leaves  out  the  mention  of  bread  in 
a  diet.  If  the  giving  is  done  with  care,  and  there's 
careful  watching  of  the  gift's  taking  or  rejection,  you 
will  be  able  to  tell  within  a  little  as  you  go  along  just 
how  firmly  and  how  usefully  your  friendships  are  form- 
ing. You  will  not  be  a  snob  presumably,  of  either  the 
direct  or  inverted  variety;  you  will  not  bow  the  knee 
to  literary  rank  or  money -making  popularity.  You 
will  do  no  play  unless  you  like  it;  and  you  will  never, 
never  call  a  play  a  failure  unless  you  feel  that  it  was 
badly  done.  If  no  one  comes  to  see  it  —  if,  when  you  *ve 
waited  patiently  enough,  still  no  one  comes  —  you  may 
say  simply  to  the  thousand  people  that  a  theatre  must 
call  No  One,  "I  am  sorry  we  cannot  present  you  this 
excellent  play  again,  unless  you  choose  to  pay  five 
times  the  present  price  of  your  seats."  No  reason 
they  shouldn't;  unless,  perhaps,  for  their  sake  and 
this  play's,  other  members  of  your  audience  —  if  you 
have  only  one  building,  so  many  actors,  and  as  there 
are  only  so  many  days  in  the  week  —  are  being  de- 
prived of  other  good  plays  that  they  may  wish  to  see. 
Just  as  between  self-respect  and  regard  for  one's  friends. 


266         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

SO  must  these  claims  be  matched  with  duty  to  the 
drama's  self.  For  if  that  stays  unfulfilled,  your  friends, 
come  they  or  no  to  particular  plays  —  this  may  seem 
their  horrid  unreasonableness,  but  they  have  better 
instinct  than  reason  —  will  not  in  the  end  give  a 
dump  for  you  or  your  theatre.  If  it  is  that  you  can- 
not afford  to  fulfil  your  duty  there  is  no  harm  in 
saying  so.  But  your  friends  must  be  frankly  told, 
and  the  good  business  man  be  left  quite  clear  where 
he  and  his  money  are  failing  you. 

The  problem  of   social   life   is   the  problem  of  the 

balance  of  obligations;   and  for  the  theatre  an  epitome 

of  social  life  itself,  and  at  its  truest  a  radiat- 

rama  an        ^       centre  of  almost  personal  imaginative 
u6mocracv  . 

life,  this  is  the  key  problem.  The  obliga- 
tions to  an  audience  are  undoubted.  One  would  like 
to  see  every  theatre  that  takes  its  task  comprehen- 
sively a  popular  theatre,  crowded  with  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  people:  for  its  public  should  be  comprehen- 
sive, too.  The  drama  has  always  tended  to  be  a  demo- 
cratic art;  and  an  audience  class-conscious  to  the  point 
of  self-consciousness  is  inevitably  a  bad  audience.  At 
its  best  it  is  apt  to  be  a  feeble  audience  in  its  passive 
politeness,  or  in  its  noisy  ebullience,  according  to  the 
custom  of  its  particular  class.  Old  theatrical  hands 
will  tell  us  to  take  it  as  a  sure  sign  of  success  when,  at 
the  end  of  a  second  or  third  act,  strangers  all  over  the 
theatre  turn  and  talk  to  each  other  like  old  acquaint- 
ances. The  touch  of  art  has  succeeded  in  making  that 
little  assembled  world  kin. 

In  the  looser  bonds  of  our  larger  social  world  no  one 
seriously  stands  for  universal  equality  unless  he  may 
make  reservations  to  his  taste.  Before  God,  before  the 
law,  in  the  eye  of  the  bus-conductor  —  will  the  doctrine 
that  all  men  are  equal  satisfactorily  expatiate  much 
further?  But  we  have  founded  much  on  tlie  phrase, 
and  it  is  worth  while  to  make  truth  of  it  when  one  can. 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  267 

And  some  practical  truth  we  may  find,  perhaps  —  if 
we  prefer  observation  to  theory  —  not  in  sweeping 
condemnation  of  all  class  distinctions,  but  by  discover- 
ing where,  in  a  so-called  state  of  equality  class  dis- 
tinctions do  actually  lie.  It  is  quite  possible,  for  in' 
stance,  to  set  up  an  equality  between  the  most  diverse 
seeming  people  in  the  understanding  and  appreciation 
of  a  work  of  art.  Is  this  such  an  unimportant  matter 
as  it  perhaps  appears?  It  is  a  passing  fellowship,  so 
we  need  not  trouble  it  by  measurement  and  analysis, 
or  even  disturb  our  generous  conviction  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  each  particular  occasion.  But  of  the  cumulative 
effect  of  such  agreements  upon  the  dispositions  of  the 
partakers  there  can  be  no  doubt,  and  it  may  even  be 
the  greater  for  not  being  easily  calculable.  A  man 
will  not  actually  say,  perhaps,  "I  am  nearer  kin  to 
that  unknown  who  likes  the  same  music  *iand  books  and 
plays  than  I  am  to  my  cousin  who  cares  for  none  of 
them."  But  neither  will  he  even  trouble  to  think  that 
blood  is  a  bond  which  will  hold  him,  if  its  call  comes, 
when  material  interests  —  the  effective  class  interests 
—  loosen  quickly  enough.  Culture  is  a  bond,  knit  by 
the  common  response  to  the  thousand  small  voices 
with  which  the  world  of  created  thought  daily  calls 
to  us.  And  therefore  the  contribution  that  this  art  of 
the  theatre  in  particular  can  make  to  the  comity  of 
society  is  a  very  real  one,  insisting,  as  in  its  nature  it 
does,  there  and  then  upon  the  common  response,  the 
mutual  understanding.  If  it  is  true  that  the  happiness 
generated  in  an  audience  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
people,  who  are  at  one  only  for  this  hour  or  two  in  their 
liking  of  a  play,  but  who  are  made  one,  we  may  almost 
say,  for  that  time  by  the  play's  virtue,  is  fuller  and 
richer  than  any  that  will  spring  in  an  assembly  whose 
bonds  are  but  a  commonly  inbred  prejudice  towards 
life  and  the  world,  then  here  is  indeed  a  service  done  to 
democracy.     Must  we  find  solvents  for  the  arbitrary 


268         THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

and  ineffectual  divisions  of  our  changing  society?  Do 
we  not  then  the  more  need  signs  Hfted  up  that  will 
draw  men  together  in  the  many  fellowships  of  a  life 
enriched  by  many  interests,  lest  a  material  age,  jealous 
of  distinction,  coin  us  all  into  a  current  drabness  and 
dullness  —  tokens  by  the  millions  of  humanity's  de- 
preciation? 

And  for  its  own  sake,  quite  certainly,  the  theatre 
must  keep  free  from   the  prejudices   of   any   artistic 

class.  Whence  it  gets,  to  that  only  can  it 
^  ,     give;  this  is  art's  paradox.     We  go  to  the 

the  clique    theatre,   people  say,  to  be   amused,   to  be 

taken  out  of  ourselves.  No  doubt;  but 
into  what?  There  is  no  world  but  this  to  write  plays 
about.  We  can  but  inhabit  it  a  little  more  fully  in  our 
imagination.  We  are  too  modest,  though.  It  is  not 
out  of  ourselves  the  dramatist  must  needs  take  us,  but 
rather  a  little  further  in.  There  are  no  possessions  of 
romance  and  beauty  which  are  not  our  own,  and  the 
secret  of  appreciating  art  is  first  to  believe  this,  and 
then,  perhaps,  to  have  a  little  patience.  For  one  thing, 
if  we  are  to  enjoy  to  the  full  our  imaginative  inheri- 
tance, we  need  to  be  not  quite  so  stupidly  tired  at  the 
end  of  a  dull  day's  work.  There  is,  indeed,  one  social 
distinction  which  the  good  theatre  must  rely  upon:  it 
can  only  appeal  to  a  leisured  class  —  a  class,  that  is  to 

say,  neither  of  people  busily  being  idle 
The  need  ^qj.  q£  work-weary  folk  reluctantly  set  free, 
leisured  Ours  has  been  called  a  quantitative  civili- 
class  zation;  it  is  true  that  we  are  apt  to  think 

in  quantities  both  of  work  done  and  of 
holiday  time.  There  is  sound  sense,  no  doubt,  in  a 
man's  claim  amidst  tlie  regimenting  not  of  industry 
only,  but  (for  apparently  we  cannot  tliink  upon  two 
planes  at  once)  of  life,  to  have  no  more  said  to  him 
than  "Here  are  four  clear  hours  to  do  as  you  like  with." 
But  leisure,  if  yvc  may  dogmatize,  implies  not  so  much 


SOME   CURRENT   DIFFICULTIES  269 

an  opportunity  as  a  condition  and  a  quality  of  mind. 
The  ideally  leisured  man  is  one  relaxing  from  keen, 
exhausting  maybe,  but,  before  all,  well-balanced  use 
of  his  faculties.  To  the  measure  of  its  misuse  in  work 
his  nature,  in  the  receptivity  of  repose,  will  be  found 
blunted  or  deformed.  It  is  not  apparently  either  quan- 
tity or  kind  of  work  that  affects  the  matter,  except  as 
they  first  affect  the  man.  Minds  may  harden  more 
disastrously  than  hands,  and  a  lawyer's  imagination 
atrophy  for  the  very  reason  that  an  unskilled  labourer's 
is  stunted.  But  the  mass  of  the  world's  work  to-day, 
it  may  be  said,  is  too  highly  specialized  to  call  for  the 
exercise  of  well-balanced  faculties.  So  much  the  worse 
then  for  the  world's  work  and  for  its  workers.  That,  at 
least,  is  the  retort  which  art,  with  its  sole  obligation  to 
man's  complete  humanity,  must  make.  And  if  we  set 
the  theatre  to  interpret  life,  how  can  it  hope  to  serve 
men  who  neither  love  life  itself  nor  care  to  live  it? 
How  can  art  in  the  end  be  any  better  than  the  reality 
of  which  it  is  the  shadow  .^^  It  is  its  shadow,  but  then 
it  is  its  illumination,  too.  The  paradox  helps  us  a  little, 
is  a  reminder  that  we  move  always  upon  lines  of  seem- 
ing contradiction  —  oddly  interlacing  spirals,  as  they 
are,  of  effect  and  cause. 

We  may  turn  from  a  play  because  the  life  it  paints 
for  us  is  too  familiar  and  too  despised.  Can  the  alchemy 
of  art  transmute  it  to  some  value  for  us?  To  none 
greater,  in  the  end,  no  doubt,  than  our  own  metal's 
worth  allows.  But  in  that  mysterious  process  — 
through  the  lively  symbolism  of  a  play's  acting,  the 
actor's  surrender  to  the  dramatist's  idea,  the  triple 
sjTiipathy  then  set  up  —  we  do  gain  a  vicarious  ex- 
perience that  may  almost  stand  for  personal  illumina- 
tion. And  art's  teaching,  heaven  knows,  is  not  more 
fallible  than  life's. 

We  get  at  last,  no  doubt,  and  not  at  very  long  last 
either,  the  govermuent,  the  church,   the  theatre   we 


£70        THE  EXEMPLARY  THEATRE 

deserve.  But  always  at  some  point  in  the  spiral's  turn, 
by  our  good  will  —  that  only  —  theatre  or  church  or 
government  may  manage  to  do  a  little  of  the  deserving 
for  us.  Effect,  in  fact,  does  sometimes  seem  to  come 
before  its  cause.  It  may  be  ultimately  logically  true 
that  art  must  await  its  full  appreciation  till  every  man 
works  in  his  kind  and  to  some  degree,  even  as  the 
artist  does.  If  art  interprets  life,  indeed,  this  must  be 
true;  or  art  or  life  is  in  the  wrong.  For  this  perfection, 
though,  of  give  and  take,  while  art  may  wait,  the  artist 
cannot.  He,  with  his  own  life  and  work  in  contradic- 
tion, still  must  go  ahead  and  do  his  broken  best. 

The  ideal  theatre,  playhouse  and  school,  fount  of  a 
city's  expression,  sounding-board  of  its  emotion  and  its 
thought,  is  neither  to  be  built  with  hands  nor  planned 
on  paper.  It  will  be  so  intimate  a  part  of  the  people's 
life  —  they  or  their  teachers  will  have  studied  in  the 
school;  the  playhouse  will  be  as  much  their  own  as  is 
their  church  or  their  club  —  that  no  one  will  mark  the 
boundaries  of  its  influence.  Press,  pulpit,  politics  — 
there  are  powers  these  lack  that  the  theatre  can  well 
wield;  there  are  things  they  fail  in  now  because,  per- 
haps, the  theatre  does  not  take  its  share  in  the  doing. 
Neither  topically,  nor  in  terms  of  direct  reason  nor  of 
pure  faith,  but  by  the  subtler  way  of  art  the  drama 
works,  to  evolve  from  the  sentient  mass  a  finer  mind, 
responding  to  the  fine  fellow-mind  of  the  poet,  expressed 
in  terms  of  a  common  experience  through  the  medium 
of  human  beings,  whose  art  has  that  deeper  signifi- 
cance that  we  find  in  the  faces  and  voices  of  friends 
with  whom  we  have  come  through  the  gates  of  under- 
standing. This  is  the  ideal,  and  towards  it  the  paths 
are  many. 


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